Me and Earl and the Dying Girl | Review

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

Genre: Contemporary

Pages: 295

Published: March 1st 2012 by Harry N. Abrams

Rating: 4/5 stars

“If after reading this book you come to my home and brutally murder me, I do not blame you.” Greg Gaines has gone through his high school career mastering the art of blending into any social group. By doing this, he has no enemies and only one friend, Earl. Greg and Earl fill their free time by making amateur versions of renowned films, all of which are pretty terrible. But his life as a social chameleon ends when his childhood “friend”, Rachel, is diagnosed with leukemia.

Greg is forced by his mother to hang out with Rachel and try to cheer her up. Rachel then decides to stop treatment and Greg and Earl embark upon the journey to make the Worst Film Ever Made. Hilarity and awkwardness ensue.

For the first part of my review, I have a confession to make. I don’t like comedies. I have an extremely strange sense of humor and the majority of comedies, both books and movies, either come across as cheesy or completely unfunny, which just annoys me. This book, however, made me laugh. I mean actually laugh. Greg was a very funny narrator and the situations the characters were put into were very amusing.

Most of the main characters were well-developed and they each had unique personalities. My favorite character was probably Earl, who was pretty funny himself. He comes from a poor family who are always physically assaulting each other, his mother plays the computer all day, and his little brother, who is somewhere from 8-12 years old, is probably a drug dealer. But it’s funny. This terrible situation is funny in the way it is presented. Greg was quite a funny character as well. He had an overbearing mother and a sister, who I completely forgot about because she was only mentioned twice. He was hilarious as a narrator and he sounded and acted like a normal teenager, which is uncommon in most YA books. Rachel was not as fleshed out at Greg or Earl, but she really wasn’t in the book very much. There were a few significant moments with her and Greg and Earl’s lives kind of revolved around her for a good amount of time, but we didn’t see her enough. I mean, she is a third of the title; I would think she would be in at least a third of it.

There wasn’t much to the plot, but it is a contemporary, so what can you expect. It's not just a cancer book. Like I said before, the character with cancer isn't in the book very much and there was only a very small sad part. Of course, I am not the most emotional person when it comes to books, so if you have a normal amount of human emotions, you might find it a little more sad than I did, but overwhelmingly funny.

Overall, a very strong novel that almost anyone will like.