Book Review: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

NOTE: I did not read this as an ARC in any way/shape/form. But please, enjoy.

I'm reviewing Jesse Andrews' debut novel Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. It's about Greg (the Me) and, sometimes, his rage-filled friend Earl (the Earl) and how they befriend Rachel, who's afflicted with Leukemia (the Dying Girl).

While interning at the bookstore, I worked at the very top level office in the three-story-ish building. When I say "office", I meant a nice decent-sized room scattered with books, computers, desks and awesome people (including me).

Occasionally, I would drift out into the "real world" and stay in the fiction ballroom. And this book was on the recommended shelf. When I would help out the booksellers with shelving, it would stare at me. In an oddly-eerie voice it would beg me "Read me, Owyn....... REEEEEAAAAAADDDD MEEEEEEE".

My resolve broke and I bought the book, but that was around when school started and I stopped making time for reading in order to focus on school.

The horror!

I know, I know. Disgraceful. But on Monday I finally picked up the book.

By the middle of the first chapter, I knew this book was amazing. Based on what I call my "Reader Feels" (when I just know a book is good by its vibe it gives me). In fact, so amazing, that this thought ran in my mind:

So throughout the whole school day, I read it. On the bus to school, during my aiding period, during my off-period, when my teachers weren't teaching me anything anyway (well, anything useful), and I finished it on the bus ride back.

This book was fantastic. I was reading it in a hallway and would burst into laughter at all the hilarious points. And seriously, this book was side-splitting. I got even more weird looks than I did when I read Meant to Be. I think I snorted. And I was too enamored with this book to care.

So along with the pure funniness, there were two other reasons on why this book is like pure amazingness.

There are not a lot of books that perfectly capture the little things, but this one did. "Little things" is what I call those tiny parts of characters that make me love them even more without it being overwhelming. Like Earl swearing like a sailor banging on his toe on the edge of a table. Or the fact that Greg Gaines is an Anglo-Saxon-named Jewish boy because his mom admitted while drunk she wanted them to be "Surprise Jews". Or all the awkward jokes Greg tells Rachel after they both realized she had cancer. (Oh wait, !SPOILER! someone gets cancer.)

The final thing is the whole set-up of the book. There was a lot of dialogue, which is good because every character in this book was funny. But Andrews had some chapters set up in a script format. Since I love dialogue, I found this better than HUGE PARAGRAPHS OF POINTLESS DESCRIPTIONS (I'm looking at you Dickens.)

I give this book 20 pounds of awesomeness out of 20. You should probably read it.

Until later today, when I spam my site with blog posts,

Owyn