Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Pages: 295
Favourite Quotes: This book is absolutely hilarious. I can't even pick one out properly. Let me just give you a chapter ending that I particularly liked:
"Also, what the hell does 'weird' even mean? I've just written it like five times and all of a sudden I'm staring at it and it doesn't even mean anything anymore. I just murdered the word 'weird'. Now it's just a bunch of letters. It's like there's all these dead bodies all over the page now.
I'm sort of close to having a freak-out about this. I have to eat some snacks or leftovers or something.
Ok, I'm back.
Although, let's just do a new chapter, because this chapter got really fucked up somehow and I'm afraid of what will happen if I continue with it."
Me: My name is Greg Gaines. I am seventeen. I am the one who wrote this book. My physical appearance is unsatisfactory, and there is probably a fungus eating my brain. I'm not even sure I'm human.
Earl: Earl Jackson is the only person who is even sort of my friend. We make mediocre films together. Werner Herzog is our biggest influence. Earl is generally filled with violent rage.
Dying Girl: During my senior year, my mom forced me to become friends with a girl who had cancer. This brought about the destruction of my entire life.
Let me just start with saying that this book is brilliantly written. Everything, from the unconventional format (getting to that later) to the breaking the fourth wall to insult the writing and the humour and lack of, as Greg put it, "This book contains precisely zero Important Life Lessons, or Little-Known Facts About Love, or sappy tear-jerking Moments When We Knew We Had Left Our Childhood Behind for Good, or whatever." And he wasn't kidding. There is basically no plot - but you don't figure that out until half way through said book, after some particularly vulgar jokes when you briefly wonder where the book is going, but decide not to care because you're too invested in it already. In summary: this is the only book you'll ever read that you'll love despite it not having a plot, character development or a point in general. In fact, the main character, Greg, who is doubling as the author of the book, is an ass. Earl is insane, and the Dying Girl, Rachel, is not really focused on like you thought she would be and by no means hero-fied. In fact, Greg makes a point of including the way she snorts when she laughs.
When you read the blurb of the book, you'd think it's a cancer book, right? Wrong. It has about the least amount of anything to do with cancer that you could possibly have in a cancer book without it being a not-cancer book, if that makes sense. So why would you want to read this book? With all I've said in the past two paragraphs, it sounds pretty crappy, except for the humour and unconventional writing that I haven't divulged to you yet. But you should read it. The reason I recommend this book isn't because what is in the book, but what isn't. Greg's blunt and unapologetic honesty allows you to grasp a perception that no other book I have read accurately dealt with. Greg knows from the very beginning that Rachel will die. And that sucks. But, in his words, 'I knew I was going to make it.' My point is, he doesn't glorify her death. She dies, that sucks, he cries a bit, and he moves on.
That's it.
As he stated, there's no important life lesson learned, though you could argue that one is given to you in form of Earl. Keep in mind that this is the closest this book ever came to having a profound moment, and that it was followed up with a discussion of whether or not there was a Goat nutsack floating around their soup. "... This is the first negative thing that happened to your life. And you can't be overreacting to it and making big-ass expensive decisions based on it. I'm just saying. People die. Other people do stupid shit. I'm surrounded by family members doing stupid shit. I used a think I had to do shit for them. I still wanna do shit for them. But you gotta live your own life. You gotta take care a your own shit before you get started doing things for errybody else."
I suppose, what I'm trying to say is that Greg's jerk tendencies and Earl's roughness leave this gap where you can find this whole new angle on terminal illnesses that is loosely protected by a series of vulgar jokes and tons of swearing (in fact, you could probably read the book just for the jokes). And let's not forget the format. It's absolutely perfect for the book. Jesse Andrews did a brilliant thing when he decided to ignore conventional writing by replacing his role with Greg, allowing his character to do basically anything. For instance, one part of the book was completely written in point form before Greg literally states that he was getting tired of it and just randomly changes back. It's written like you would expect it to be written from a character like Greg. The way the book is written, in fact, showed you a lot more about the character than Greg himself with his self-degrading statements. And let's not forget that the dialogue is written in film script:
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The writing is just so random and you turn the page and start each chapter with absolutely no clue what is going to happen next, how Greg is going to show you, and what jokes will follow. Really the only thing you know for certain is that Rachel will die. It's a lot less morbid than it sounds, I swear.
Of course, the book is not absolutely mega brilliant. It's not amazing and it didn't completely turn my life on its head. It was a very good read, though I quickly got irritated with Greg on several occasions, which I believe was the author's intention anyway. I think he created this exaggerated annoying and unlikable character so that you can shape the way you think about what's happening and get you to where he wants you to go. And that's a very difficult thing to do; to make a reader who dislikes a character and his actions understand and appreciate what that character is doing. So, Kudos to you Jesse Andrews. You did a very difficult thing very well.
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