Book Review: What are we even doing with our lives?

If Bojack Horseman lived in Portlandia and wrote a children’s book in the style of Richard Scarry, it would look like this.  

I stumbled upon the book, What Are We Even Doing with Our Lives? (HarperCollins, 2017), while browsing my local library somewhere between the essays and the humor section. This “most honest ‘children’s’ book of all time” is definitely not for children unless you want them to grow up to be cynical hipsters. It features meticulously detailed two-page spreads of anthropomorphic animals going about their Very Busy Days in a city called “Digi Valley.” I am a huge Richard Scarry fan, so I took the book home and read it in one sitting (I mean, it is a picture book).

At the Busy Bean Café, we meet characters like Freelancer Frank, Realtor Rick, and Bella the Beauty Blogger, who use the free wifi to communicate with everyone except the people sitting right next to them. Bella the Barista is just trying to pay off her college loans after getting a degree in photography.  She just needs to figure a way to monetize her Instagram feed. Roommates Frances and Sadie rent their extra room on airbnb to “fund their web series while their parents in Indiana pay the rest of the rent.”

It’s a sad and hilarious commentary on our use of technology that only further alienates us from each other as we barely manage to get through our days.

But what will our new friends even do with themselves if the Wi-Fi goes down in Digi Valley? 

What Are We Even Doing with Our Lives? was created by real-life best friends Chelsea Marshall (author) and Mary Dauterman (illustrator). Get it at your local independent bookstore!