Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

by Jesse Andrews

[Joni Reads]

The title of this book drew so much attention that I hopes the book would be as amazing as it seemed. I was pleasantly surprised.
Greg has managed to navigate high school and avoid drama at the same time. He attends a very cliquey high school and tying yourself to one particular group can be dreadful because it means that there will almost certainly be another feud happening with another group. Greg has avoided this by doing something no one else has ever accomplished. He has managed to fit into every group though never tying himself down with them. See, no one group can see Greg with their rival group. So he floats in between them but never allows himself to be friends with anyone aside from misfit Earl, a trouble maker who only has one thing in common with Greg: their love of film.
Everything is going nice and calm in Greg's life until his mother drops a bomb on him: Rachel, a girl he once sort of dated in the past, has been diagnosed with leukemia. Greg's mother says that Greg should be there for her and makes him call her and get together with her.
At first Rachel is not interested but slowly she allows Greg to spend time with her. But Greg finds himself in a position he is not used to. He now is expected to be seen in public with Rachel. He can no longer remain groupless any longer.
I liked that this book was not a love story. Aside from A Walk to Remember, I am not a fan of books where the characters fall in love all the while knowing that by the last page one of them will die. In this book it was more about Greg opening himself up to a friend and then trying to deal with the fact that this friend has limited time left.
Greg and Earl are amateur filmmakers but they have never shown their movies to anyone until Rachel comes along. She finds them entertaining and they decide as a way to cope with her illness that they will make a film just for her, with hilariously sad results.
Nothing seems to work. They try to go for the documentary perspective, speaking with Rachel's family for memories of her but her family is too heartbroken and it winds up being a very sad movie, not uplifting for Rachel, as they had hoped for. So they try a stop motion cartoon of Rachel fighting the cancer cells. But they don't get the affect they want. Attempt after attempt is a complete failure.
To me this book is about a teen boy realizing that there is life outside of frivolousness of high school. Greg has spent all of his high school years alone and just floating through until Rachel comes along and he slams into Earth.
This is such an interesting book. It's dealing with such a sad subject but the quirkiness of the characters makes it so it's not an overly sad book. Greg is so awkward and unsure of himself and Earl is such a wildcard that I was always on my toes in this unique and unpredictable novel.