Author: Jesse Andrews
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Humour
Rating: 4.5 Stars
The sentence should be: “I was pleasantly surprised when the first day of senior year did not make me want to freak out and hide in my own locker pretending to be dead.”
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is pure awesomeness. I can't eloquently state how much i loved this soo much! It honestly reflected my personality! At times I felt as though I was reliving parts of my own life. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is undeniably real and honest. It is possibly the realest novel I have read this year.
I mean, being ostracized by sophomore church kids would not be the worst thing in the world, but my one goal in life was to not be ostracized by anyone.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl begins at the start of senior year in Benson High School. Greg has spent years learning to maneuver through the maze of social groups and cliques in high school. Greg's mission is to be virtually invisible, yet, not disliked by anyone in particular. I wouldn't call him a recluse nor an extrovert. He is just average.
A person’s life is like a big weird ecosystem, and if there’s one thing science teachers enjoy blathering about, it’s that changes in one part of an ecosystem affect the entire thing.
During senior year, Greg's mother forces him to hang out a girl, Rachel, from his grade that gets Leukemia. I guess this is where the comparison stops with The Fault in Our Stars.He isn't too pleased about this establishment. This new found friendship between Greg and Rachel isn't romanticised or idealised. It simply is. What you see is what you get. There are no long monologues on life and death which force us to feel certain emotions.
Why the hell would we believe in her? She didn’t even believe in herself.
As Rachel "battles" cancer and Greg begins to spend more time with her. They form a weird friendship and bond with each other.Through this process, they begin to figure themselves out as people. Their simple and random conversations reveal more about life than certain full written novels. Greg and Rachel friendship isn't life changing or awe-inspiring but it is a bond nonetheless. Because of this, Rachel is the only person who has watched the films Greg and Earl have created. As the cancer progresses, Greg and Earl set out to make Rachel a film.
I raised a girl who’s sweet, and . . . and lovely, but not tough... Greg, I’m a good mother. But I don’t know how to get her through this. It’s like, God forbid, she doesn’t want to live anymore.
I guess what I loved about Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is I did not feel manipulated once in the story. There was no moral behind the story other than just reading through an experience. Jesse Andrews doesn't romanticise cancer or its effects. At times, he is brutally honest and some of the imagery is vividly morose. But it is reality. It is life. This novel just felt like the personification of day to day living. Ultimately, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a coming of age novel, highlighting its tumultuous journey.
“The world needs more guys like you. Not less.” Now I was getting alarmed. Was there a campaign to get rid of guys like me? Because that campaign would probably start with me.
In the novel, I never felt any personal connection to any of the characters. They were all just average and maybe borderline boring. But that is what made me like them more. The heroine isn't given superhero characteristics or saintly morality. At times Greg felt like his whole antagonist. Greg's counterpart, Earl, wasn't any better!
The Greg S. Gaines Three-Step Method of Seduction 1. Lurch into girl’s bedroom pretending to be a zombie. 2. Go for a fist pound. 3. Suggest that you habitually masturbate all over pillows.
To reiterate one more time, this novel is the bomb!
Because I don’t really have a moral compass and I need to rely on him for guidance, or else I might accidentally become like a hermit or a terrorist or something. How fucked up is that? Am I even a human? Who the hell knows.
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