Review: Picture book lends perspective
Imagine for a minute that all your friends are dead, that you are walking closer and closer to the eternal darkness of death. Depressing, isn’t it? Well, if you think about it, that’s how the dinosaurs feel; that’s how our grandparents feel; that’s how every single one of us will feel at some point.
Here’s the uplifting part: we will all feel like this. Yes, it’s a sad reality, but it’s impending and we can’t stop it. So, what do we do? Some people might turn to religion, others to friends and family, some to the pursuit of experiences. However you decide to handle the fact that everything we know as “life” will end, there might be some comfort in knowing that everyone will feel that with you.
Jory John and Avery Monsen approached this subject in their dark comedy “All My Friends Are Dead.” You can read through this picture book in about 15 minutes and feel nearly every range of emotion. As you start flipping the pages, the first being a cartoon drawing of a brontosaurus saying “All my friends are dead,” you can feel the angst and anxiety from knowing the brevity of life. A few pages later, after the elderly gentleman who in that moment finds that right now all his friends have died, the book throws you off a little with a pathetic-looking milk jug who mourns, “All my friends expired on Tuesday.” The turn to comical is almost whiplash-causing. It continues with more hilariously satirical forms of death. By the end, your opinion has changed.
Yes, this life is short. Yes, we might wish we’d done more up to this point. Yes, death will happen and we can’t do anything about it. Though now these thoughts are coupled with an intense hope for the future, a drive to make the most out of the time that we have and a determination to accomplish our dreams. What better way to get absolutely cranked on life than to stare it in the face and say “Bring it. I will own you.” An acknowledgment of death may be just the push one needs to move into the next phase of life.
When you put things in such a black-and-white, life-and-death point of view, it brings that low score on a quiz, that girl who dumped you or that boot on your car because you forgot to pay those three years of parking tickets at USU into perspective. Maybe none of your friends are dead. Maybe some of your friends are dead. But you are not dead.
— Kasey Van Dyke is a five-year sophomore because she can’t just make up her mind about a major. Currently she wants to do space things in the future and is studying physics. That may change next week. She enjoys Diet Coke and South Park. Send questions and comments to kaseyvandyke2@gmail.com.