Review #14 - Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

Where can I start with Me and Earl and the Dying Girl? Should I start with the fact it's the most overhyped teen novel, possibly ever? Or maybe that it compromised pace for humour? Or the fact that it makes you feel ugly inside when you finish?

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is about a guy, Greg, his best friend Earl (they make films together) and Rachel, his ex from elementary school, who has cancer.

Ok, we'll start with the positive. Some bits were funny and the narrative was bearable (damned by faint praise). I did laugh out loud at parts and that is high praise indeed. I never laugh out loud at fiction in general (TV, books etc) with the exception of tots tv. So the narrative could be funny.

The cover is gorgeous. It feels amazing and it is just really pretty. If you want to buy this book it should just do it for the cover.

My main complaint is that I didn't like Greg at all as a hero or even antihero. He blamed people all the time for his own shortcomings and problems, especially Rachel. I also found he was incredibly selfish, and no, I won't accept that "that is just how teenagers are" stuff because we're not at all. I didn't warm to him at all.

I found that the narrative was good at first, however it slowly became forced and laboured. It just became tedious and repetitive. It just wasn't entertaining like a book should be.

It was also very morbid for a book about cancer when it should be uplifting or sad like TFIOS but this didn't feel as real as TFIOS. It just felt depressing and morbid.

I gave this one star.