"Just like Jacob Larkin made me realize that no matter how much you think you know a person - no matter how pretty they are, or how together they act, or how popular they seem, you can never know what their lives are really like." (Brie Eagen)
This is my second five star read of 2016 and I'm starting to see a trend when it comes to my reading enjoyment. My first five star book of 2016 was Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver, I've come to the conclusion that books about life and death, redemption and what comes inbetween all of that, intrigues me... So do funerals... (I'm not even lying), most books that I love have funerals (and morbid themes) in them .e.g. Torn by Cat Clarke.
"I was fifteen years old when I died of a broken heart." (Brie Eagen)
The Catastrophic History of You and Me has an interesting premise. Brie Eagen literally dies of a broken heart. WHAT?!?!?! Yeah, I scoffed and laughed at this book when I heard that, but the way in which this premise was carried out proved me wrong. VERY WRONG!!! Like living life only to find out it was a lie wrong... Wait does that even make sense? Anyways...
The main character, Brie, was a character that I connected to easily and couldn't get enough of. Brie has an extremely quirky voice reminiscent of those chick-lit, contemporary voices and I loved it so much. Brie's thoughts and what she was going through was unfiltered. This made me love her, understand her denial, her anger, her mistakes, her lessons, her need to do the right thing.
Patrick was another amazing character. He is the unwanted, afterlife spirit guide. He is extremely funny and I loved the banter, fights and funny nicknames that him and Brie had.
The secondary characters are also impressive. They are realistic and unstereotypical. Even when I thought that I knew who they were and what they would do, I didn't. This book had an element of unpredictability to it that I thoroughly enjoyed.
The Catastrophic History of You and Me is extremely inventive and interesting. This book is comical and quirky, but it's also extremely sad and heartwarming. What you see from this book on a surface level and what you expect to get from it, isn't what you get from it. What you get from this book is so much! ALL the twists and turns! ALL the things! ALL the feels!
I can't recommend this book enough. This is Jess Rothenberg's debut novel and I can't wait to read what else she has in store for us!