I can imagine a few of my readers ‘ thoughts while clicking on this post – ” Gone for almost a month without a word and when finally something turns up after a very long time , it turns out to be a review of a picture book . Duh . . .”
Yeah , my reading has not been upto the mark . Honestly , a techie who writes code doubling up as a book blogger for real people in her spare time is somewhat tedious . My brain just can’t keep switching between the creative mode and the logical mode as and when I wish without compromising on the frequency and quality of the creative output here . The logical mode just refuses to relinquish control over my thoughts and I am not able to put down my ideas clearly with all the deadlines , deliverables etc .
Do you remember seeing this face in Facebook memes ? We would have come across this face quite often in Facebook . If you do not know , Allie Brosh is the person who gave us this character which is a favorite with our meme engineers . 
While beginner bloggers are struggling to write a single About Me page and are turning towards all those how-to posts by experienced bloggers , Allie Brosh has two About Me pages .
ABOUT ME #1
Hi. I’m Allie.
If I had to explain myself in six words, those words would be “heroic, caring, alert and flammable.” That’s only four words. Oh well, I guess I should have thought of that before I started writing. Too late now.
Here, I drew you a picture of a unicorn:*A PICTURE OF A UNICORN*
ABOUT ME #2
I decided to make a second “About” page .
I don’t really know what I was thinking .
Thankfully we didn’t have our blogging gurus then to point out to Brosh that she was ‘ not being professional ‘ and that she should be more serious about her blog . And so , we have one of the internet ‘ s most hilarious & definitely quirky blog . . . Brosh posted about funny incidents in her life – the posts had illustrations drawn in Paintbrush and short explanatory paragraphs underneath each illustration . In 2011 , after two years of blogging at Hyperbole & A Half , Brosh took a break from her blog for almost a year . She had earlier revealed it to her readers on Reddit that she was suffering from depression . Again the blogging gurus would not have been too happy with this disappearing act .
It is when I read Brosh ‘ s journey with HAH that I realized how blogging has evolved and been ( somewhat ) stripped of its creative freedom . Planning the content , scheduling the posts , engaging with the readers – even hobby bloggers like me need to worry about stuff like these so that we can still get some reader engagement . Finally , almost any thing & every thing has been turned into a rat race . . .
*Review starts here for the reader who can’t bother with my musings*
Brosh says in her blog that there are ten and a half new stories in the collection of 18 stories . So , you will get to read six and a half stories from her blog . My all time favorite story is The God of Cake . You can read it in her blog here . From the new stories I enjoyed Thoughts and Feelings very much .
More than the explanatory text in normal English underneath the illustrations , I loved the scribbled observations that were part of the illustration . Just a snippet from Thoughts & Feelings –
Subject later struggled to open the half and half , mangling the spout in the process . Felt like the carton should have been more cooperative . Already bad day . Headache . Wind . No time for carton ‘ s bullshit . Subject angrily whispering ” why are you doing this ? ” at carton . Carton doesn ‘ t have a reason .
I don’t know about you , but I could relate to this stupid frustration one directs at the poor inanimate objects which happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time . Maybe , they might be in the right place after all – like the sofa against which I stubbed my toe and started cursing about stuff being all over the place when I was actually the one who had walked into it without looking up from the book , into which I had my head
Only few people could express how they feel that it resonates with others , especially on tough topics like Depression . After a lifetime of reading about ‘ not able to feel anything ‘ , ‘ feeling numb ‘ and all the other cliche phrases , Allie Brosh ‘ s descriptions were interesting .
. . . And that ‘ s how my depression got so horrible that it actually broke through to the other side and became a sort of fear proof exoskeleton .
You can read the post here .
Do check out her blog after you have placed an order for this book . Highly recommended from me . . .
It might be a light read for all the serious readers out there but books like these make it to print not very often . The design of the book itself is somewhat offbeat and definitely the reading experience will be a laugh riot . . .
On Books,Movies and other Random stuff that make my Day 