Title: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Author: Jesse Andrews
Rating: 3/5 stars
Summary: Greg Gaines is the last master of high school espionage, able to disappear at will into any social environment. He has only one friend, Earl, and together they spend their time making movies, their own incomprehensible versions of Coppola and Herzog cult classics.
Until Greg’s mother forces him to rekindle his childhood friendship with Rachel.
Rachel has been diagnosed with leukemia—-cue extreme adolescent awkwardness—-but a parental mandate has been issued and must be obeyed. When Rachel stops treatment, Greg and Earl decide the thing to do is to make a film for her, which turns into the Worst Film Ever Made and becomes a turning point in each of their lives.
And all at once Greg must abandon invisibility and stand in the spotlight.
Review:
I'm not going to structure this like I normally do my reviews as I'd rather keep this review shorter. There were things I really enjoyed about this novel and there were things I think just did not work like they may have been intended to. First up: I really appreciated that the story dealt with mental illness in a really unique way. It didn't try and be something it wasn't and have a 'deep and meaningful' story coupled with the terminal illness (even though I don't actually think there's anything wrong with doing that and I do enjoy those stories, it was just refreshing to see something else). I think there was some really gorgeous moments in the story near the end (I actually teared up in one scene) that were nicely intersected between the more humorous parts, which holds up most of the novel. I felt like the humour in the prose was really well done but the dialogue (predominantly from Greg) just did not always work and felt forced too much.
In general, I would've enjoyed this novel more had I liked Greg more. He was my main issue with the story which isn't great since I have to read from his perspective. I just didn't feel connected to him as a protagonist and he frustrated me a lot. I was way more drawn to Earl and Rachel, to be honest. Overall, I thought the book was alright. I didn't love it like a lot of people do, but I did enjoy it for certain things. I'm also interested to check out how the movie turned out since I've heard such good reviews.
Anyway, remember how that was meant to be short? Oh well. Have any of you read this book and if so, what'd you think? Agree or disagree with me? Let me know in the comments!
Until next time!
Jess, xxx
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