katarinaliest

Greg isstarting senior year, to avoid the inevitable truth that high school sucks hehas come up with a plan. Greg will avoid befriending anyone so everyone willthink he is their friend and all of them will leave him alone. That plandoesn’t include Earl though, but then again Earl is more of a co-worker. Thetwo of them are remaking movies, Earl is kicking people in the face and Greg isavoiding everyone, until his mother forces him to call up Rachel from Hebrewclass that is and Greg reluctantly obeys since Rachel is dying of leukemia.

The coverand title had me fooled. I had expected a completely different novel. Afterthis kind of introduction what you would expect might be me stating that thisis ‘ the worst book ever written’ but I won’t. Instead I will tell you thatthis book is fun and funny and the fact that I had expected it to be a littlemore grown up and a little less goofy tainted my reading experience onlyoccasionally.

Greg is ahilarious narrator, sometimes bordering on weird. He himself isn’t a big fan ofthe book and more than once asks the reader to just stop reading and throw itin the garbage but I couldn’t be persuaded because it was way too entertainingto put down. This novel isn’t just a novel, it is more of a sit-com. Somechapters are written as film-remake summaries, some are written in bulletpoints, that makes reading this book never boring, never dry. Narrator Greg hasan ironic sense of humor and the way he tells the story even leukemia can makeyou laugh out loud.

Still thisnovel has a serious undercurrent. The fact that a close friend of Gregs isdying does make you stop and think every once in a while but that is it. JesseAndrews did not turn this novel into a three hundred page memorial service forthe dying girl. Leukemia is described like something that can happen to you,one of life’s curveballs, even death is treated that way. Up until the end thisbook stays light and casual, never getting sentimental, always keeping itssense of humor.

I rarely dothis but ‘Me and Earl and the dying Girl’ had me laughing out loud many moretimes than I could count. It has been a long time since I have read a book asfunny as this one. Narrator Greg seems much younger than he actually is, Iattribute that to his goofy humor, and sometimes I wanted to shout ‘Grow upalready!’ but if he had listened to me, then this book would surely be a muchmore depressing read.

I loved this book, it made me laugh all the way through, despite its more serious moments. Anyone who doesn’t mind goofy humor will have a blast reading this novel.