Page 45 Review by Stephen
Of course it is! I'm still playing videogames into the early hours of the morning, and do you know how old I am now? No...? Good!
Even parents are merely playing at being adults. Responsible...? Knowledgeable...? They haven't got the first flippin' clue. The whole rearing thing is done on a wing and a prayer, the prayer predominantly being "Why did I ever have children?"
Now along comes Sarah Andersen with a big book of comic strips designed primarily to make you feel so much better about your lives - your own insecurities and perceived inadequacies when compared the rest of the right-thinking world which doesn't actually exist.
This will tick almost every recognition box except those possessed by ridiculously high achievers who would be hard pressed to pass for human anyway.
Delivered in the Matt Groening school of cartooning, even the Groening failed to achieve such a high hit/miss hilarity ratio in his LIFE IS HELL series, as Anderson addresses the following with admirable confessional candour:
Nightmares for introverts, written communication versus verbal communication, oh so clammy hands; comfort dressing, heels, clothing sizes in general; over-think on dates, over-prepping for dates, and how to know that your loved one is here for the long haul; gorging, guilt and the making of friends (sort of - neuroses neutralising all hope of progress); good relationships / bad relationships, new relationships / old relationships; internet comment threads, internet search histories (yours!) and the barely controllable desire to defenestrate your laptop each and every time some twerp tags you in a Facebook photo.
I feel Sarah's frustration at slow walkers ahead of me, five-abreast families scoring 10,000 bonus points for being inconsiderate oblivo-bots! I demand the right to complain without someone soothing me with mitigating plus-points or stress-relieving advice; but I have to confess I had no idea about when to wash bras versus when most women truthfully wash them. Is this a thing? Admittedly I cannot recall any lad at school washing his groin-protecting cricket box out during an entire year of dashing sweatily between creases, but nor do I remember any of them still wearing that box out of a date.
Throughout Anderson bravely hangs her mental underwear out on the metaphorical line in order to demystify our oh so common neuroses whilst praying you don't laugh at her bloomers.
Basically this, then: you are not alone.
And you never listen to your own sage advice.
