Me and Earl and the Dying Girl Review

Hey guys! So today I finished Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews meaning that now it’s time for a review!

Greg Gaines is the last master of high school espionage, able to disappear at will into any social environment. He has only one friend, Earl, and together they spend their time making movies, their own incomprehensible versions of Coppola and Herzog cult classics.

Until Greg’s mother forces him to rekindle his childhood friendship with Rachel.

Rachel has been diagnosed with leukemia—-cue extreme adolescent awkwardness—-but a parental mandate has been issued and must be obeyed. When Rachel stops treatment, Greg and Earl decide the thing to do is to make a film for her, which turns into the Worst Film Ever Made and becomes a turning point in each of their lives.

And all at once Greg must abandon invisibility and stand in the spotlight. –Goodreads.com summary

Rating

This book is a hard one to rate because I feel so sure about half of it but then the end is kind of just meh, so I’m going to break my own rating system here and say that I would reread three fourths of this book— then I’d stop, and make up my own ending. Can you tell how this review is going yet?

Pros

So as I said, the first three fourths of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is hilarious, heartfelt, and overall just great! But then life takes over… and the book just gets meh... But I’m getting ahead of myself let’s talk about the good stuff first. The characters are very strong, you understand where each of them is coming from and feel for them— they all feel real, something a book like this needs. The writing style of the book being told as a book that Greg is writing is really interesting and I felt like it helped the book! I also really enjoyed the inclusion of the different formats of writing (paragraphs, screenplay, and bullets), it was also very interesting and allowed the reader to learn more about Greg's personality just by how he would write things like that.

Cons

Now for the things that I wasn’t too fond of— really just the end. Now before I say that I want to explain that Jesse Andrews might have been going for an underwhelming ending because, well, life is underwhelming and disappointing sometimes, but that doesn’t mean it makes a good ending to a story. Towards the end of the novel I felt like I was just waiting for something to happen… and wait, and waiting, because it never happened. The end felt abrupt and left me feeling like there was more of Greg’s story that I was missing out on.

Overall, I’m glad I read Me and Earl and the Dying Girl because I did enjoy it! I can see myself rereading it in the future (even if it is just part of it). I am also extremely excited for the movie coming out this summer! I think that the movie looks great from the trailers!

Have you read Me and Earl and the Dying Girl? What did you think? Are you planning on seeing the movie later this year?

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Meagan!