Review: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Jesse Andrews
Published by Harry N. Abrams 2012
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary

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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.

POSITIVE THOUGHTS

• This is not your average story about a boy who has a friend who has cancer. Not at all. I loved how the author (and of course the pseudo-author, Greg himself) made that clear from the beginning and even throughout the story kept stressing that this is not and will never be that kind of story. I thought it was refreshing, outside of the box, creative. 
• Personality wise, Greg and his friend Earl are difficult to identify with, because they are soooo weird, but in the end you have to like them even if it's just a little bit. I think the author did a great job at portraying these two kids just the way they are. They are absolutely crazy to a point where it gets obnoxious, but hey, at least he didn't hold back because he wanted us to like his characters. I don't think they are like-able at all, which is sort of a big deal since main characters are usually the ones we have to like, right? 
• The typography in this book is all over the place, and I love it! Greg, the kid who supposably writes this book, uses all kinds of different formats to tell his story. There's regular text, but when he gets bored of that he uses movie script format or even just dots as if the whole text is a list. He also includes text messages (whorrendous spelling included, of course). This book is written by a creative teenager, who doesn't play by the rules. I like it, it works!
• The first half of the book was absolutely hilarious, which is quite odd when you think about the fact that there's a young girl fighting against leukemia. I laughed out loud at some of the comments Greg made to his readers. There's this especially funny part where he and Earl accidentally get high and they have this conversation in which they don't even use words. Then the second half got a bit more serious, the tension rising as Rachel got sicker and sicker. It never really got too sentimental. Except maybe at one time, where Greg sort of had his little breakdown, which I thought was one of the best parts of the book. So yes, the balance of humor and serious stuff was a bit off, but then again I liked this, because it's not conventional. 

NEGATIVE THOUGHTS

• The level of extreme absurdity was a bit high at times, which made it hard for me to find it believable and therefore hard to stay into the story. I understand that the things Greg says are mostly intended as jokes, and I do agree that he is very funny, but sometimes I just thought it was all a bit too much, that he was taking it too far and then it would lose some funniness. I do agree that this fits his awkward personality nicely, but I thought it was really obnoxious to read it sometimes, so yeah, I'm just being honest here. 

Have you read Me and Earl and the Dying Girl? Would you like to?