Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened

My lovely friend Malia gifted this book to me for my 22nd birthday and wrote in her card that it’s her absolute favorite. I don’t think I truly appreciated book gifts when I was younger, but I now love book gifts — it’s like getting song recommendations. I wouldn’t say that this book is my favorite, but I did really enjoy reading it and laughed out loud at some of the stories (especially the one about getting lost in the woods and the duck story). Somewhere in the middle of the book, the author describes what it’s like for her to struggle with depression:

“And that’s the most frustrating thing about depression. It isn’t always something you can fight back against with hope. It isn’t even something — it’s nothing. And you can’t combat nothing. You can’t fill it up. You can’t cover it. It’s just there, pulling the meaning out of everything. That being the case, all the hopeful, proactive solutions start to sound completely insane in contrast to the scope of the problem.”

I’m planning on taking a class called ‘Understanding Depression’ next quarter, and I’m excited to learn about depression academically. I think books/stories like these will really complement my academic pursuit in ‘understanding depression’ by adding a first-person perspective.