Match Book
Solutions and Other Problems
Allie Brosh
2020 · 519 pages · Memoir
How it reads
Solutions and Other Problems is memoir (illustrated memoir, specifically), and its dominant mood is funny. The humour is the point, not garnish. The pace is moderate — neither a page-turner nor a slow burn — so it holds up whether you read it in long sittings or short ones.
It's set in several locations, in the recent past, told in the first person by a single narrator. Its central concerns are identity, loss and grief and redemption. In weight it sits in the middle: substantial without being heavy going.
It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending is bittersweet: it resolves, but at a price. At 519 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's a mega-bestseller — the book everyone seems to have read.
Pick it up if…
- you're in the mood for something funny
- you want a complete story in one book
- you're drawn to stories about identity
Maybe not if…
- you need something melancholy, dark or tense
- you want something you can finish this weekend
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- memoir
- Author gender
- female
- Author experience
- established
- Setting: place
- multiple locations
- Setting: time
- recent past
- Mood / feeling
- funny
- Pace
- moderate
- Tone / weight
- balanced
- Length
- long
- Narrative style
- first person, one narrator
- Publication era
- recent
- Popularity
- mega-bestseller
- Series vs standalone
- standalone
- Themes
- identity, loss and grief, redemption
- Ending style
- bittersweet
What these mean: the 15 dimensions of a book.
Books with a similar reading
The closest books in Match Book's catalogue across the same dimensions, and what they share.
- Magical Thinking: True StoriesAugusten BurroughsShares: memoir, funny mood, balanced tone, moderate pace
- Broken (In the Best Possible Way)Jenny LawsonShares: memoir, funny mood, balanced tone, moderate pace
This Will Only Hurt a LittleBusy PhilippsShares: memoir, funny mood, balanced tone, moderate pace- What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in EssaysDamon YoungShares: memoir, funny mood, balanced tone, moderate pace
- A Killer by Design: Murderers, Mindhunters, and My Quest to Decipher the Criminal MindAnn Wolbert BurgessShares: memoir, balanced tone, moderate pace, set in multiple locations
- Drawing BloodMolly CrabappleShares: memoir, illustrated memoir, moderate pace, bittersweet ending
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