Why We Broke Up

by Daniel Handler

[clementine]

There were things about this book that I really, truly loved and things about it that bothered me. I was a huge fan of A Series of Unfortunate Events as a kid, and to this day I'm still very fond of the series as clever, intelligent, well thought out, and entertaining literature for kids. I was really interested to read some of Daniel Handler's other work (under his real name), especially something that is so different from A Series of Unfortunate Events.

A lot of people here don't like the narrative style, but that was one of the things that I found strongest about the book. I thought the prose was really lovely, and it was a very effective method at getting into Min's head. There were times when it was a bit hard to follow, and I suppose it is a bit gimmicky, but I thought it worked well and helped make the book an experience.

I really, really, really liked Ed as a character. As a person, obviously, he's a bit questionable, but I liked that he wasn't just completely awful. He made an effort for Min and he kept an open mind to her different-ness and he had his moments. That was one of the strongest parts of the book for me - the fact that I could understand why Min liked him, even when it was obvious they weren't meant to be. (I mean, aside from the fact that the entire book is a breakup letter so you know that they break up. Like, that's kind of the point.)

Min, on the other hand... huh. Min. To channel Al, I have no opinion on her, or rather I have such conflicting and confusing opinions on her that I essentially don't have one. Handler was, I think, trying to play around with the MPDG archetype here. Min herself says at the end of the book that she's not special or different. But it took too long to get to that point, and it seemed like he was trying too hard to show how DIFFERENT!! and QUIRKY!! Min and her friends were. Al's Bitter Sixteen party really made me roll my eyes. Please stop, dude. I generally don't buy into the "teenagers don't act like that!!" criticism that a lot of people lob at books with teenagers who are intelligent, mature, and witty, because those characters often remind me very strongly of my own friends, who do exist and actually are like that, but I think people are quite justified in saying that about Min and her friends. It's not that they're 100% contrived, but, yeah, they're just a bit too perfectly quirky and witty to be believable.

I liked it, though. I really liked it. Yeah, the characters weren't totally believable, but at the the heart of it was a genuine story written by a guy who obviously remembers high school really well (because, honestly, there was a lot of stuff in there that was so spot-on), and I liked it. It's not perfect, but it's good enough for me.