Me and Earl and the Dying Girl - Softcover

Andrews, Jesse

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1760290459 ISBN 13: 9781760290450

Publisher: Atlantic Books, 2015

Synopsis

Soon to be a major motion picture
It is a universally acknowledged truth that high school sucks. But on the first day of his senior year, Greg Gaines thinks he's figured it out. The answer to the basic existential question: How is it possible to exist in a place that sucks so bad? His strategy: remain at the periphery at all times. Keep an insanely low profile. Make mediocre films with the one person who is even sort of his friend, Earl.
This plan works for exactly eight hours. Then Greg's mother forces him to become friends with a girl who has cancer. This brings about the destruction of Greg's entire life.

About this title

About the Author

Jesse Andrews is a writer, musician, and former German youth hostel receptionist. He is a graduate of Harvard University and lives in Brooklyn, New York, which is almost as good as Pittsburgh. His debut novel Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is now an award-winning film. He is currently directing his first feature-length film, inspired by David Foster Wallace's essay A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. Visit him online at www.jesseandrews.com

From Kirkus Reviews

A frequently hysterical confessional from a teen narrator who won't be able to convince readers he's as unlikable as he wants them to believe.

"I have no idea how to write this stupid book," narrator Greg begins. Without answering the obvious question—just why is he writing" this stupid book"?—Greg lets readers in on plenty else. His filmmaking ambitions. His unlikely friendship with the unfortunately short, chain-smoking, foulmouthed, African-American Earl of the title. And his unlikelier friendship with Rachel, the titular "dying girl." Punctuating his aggressively self-hating account with film scripts and digressions, he chronicles his senior year, in which his mother guilt-trips him into hanging out with Rachel, who has acute myelogenous leukemia. Almost professionally socially awkward, Greg navigates his unwanted relationship with Rachel by showing her the films he's made with Earl, an oeuvre begun in fifth grade with their remake of Aguirre, Wrath of God. Greg's uber-snarky narration is self-conscious in the extreme, resulting in lines like, "This entire paragraph is a moron." Debut novelist Andrews succeeds brilliantly in painting a portrait of a kid whose responses to emotional duress are entirely believable and sympathetic, however fiercely he professes his essential crappiness as a human being.

Though this novel begs inevitable thematic comparisons to John Green's The Fault in Our Stars (2011), it stands on its own in inventiveness, humor and heart.

Edition details

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1760290459
• ISBN 13: 9781760290450
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 295