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Solutions and Other Problems
528 pages
A hilarious and gut-wrenching exploration of life's darkest moments, told through crude drawings and devastatingly sharp observations.
What it feels like
Reading this feels like sitting with a deeply funny, profoundly wounded friend who is telling you the absolute truth about how hard it is to be alive. The experience is a whiplash of emotion, moving at a brisk, highly visual pace through chaotic childhood memories and bizarre animal encounters before dropping the floor out from under you with staggering meditations on grief, divorce, and loneliness. The crude, MS Paint-style illustrations belie a masterful emotional precision, capturing the exact posture of despair or the manic energy of a weird kid. It is an atmosphere of melancholic absurdity, perfect for readers who survive their own existential dread through dark humor and need to know they aren't alone in the mess.
- Mood
- chaotic
- melancholic
- surreal
- tender
- Tone
- darkly comedic
- self-deprecating
- devastatingly honest
- absurdist
- vulnerable
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- navigating profound grief · the absurdity of existence · childhood weirdness · living with mental illness · the messiness of being human
- The writing
- Deceptively simple and sharply observant, pairing crude, highly expressive illustrations with emotionally precise, punchy text.
- The arc
- Begins with chaotic, laugh-out-loud absurdity before plunging into a devastating abyss of grief, ultimately surfacing with a fragile, hard-won acceptance of life's weirdness.
- Who it's for
- Anyone who copes with existential dread and profound loss through dark humor and appreciates raw, unfiltered vulnerability.
Content notes
- grief
- death of a sibling
- depression
- divorce
- animal illness
About the book
Allie Brosh returns with a new collection of comedic, autobiographical, and illustrated essays.
Solutions and Other Problems includes humorous stories from Allie Brosh’s childhood; the adventures of her very bad animals; merciless dissection of her own character flaws; incisive essays on grief, loneliness, and powerlessness; as well as reflections on the absurdity of modern life.
This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features all-new material with more than 1,600 pieces of art.
Description from Open Library.
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