Me and Earl and the Dying Girl [Hardcover]

Jesse Andrews (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2012

Up until senior year, Greg has maintained total social invisibility. He only has one friend, Earl, and together they spend their time—when not playing video games and avoiding Earl’s terrifying brothers— making movies, their own versions of Coppola and Herzog cult classics. Greg would be the first one to tell you his movies are f*@$ing terrible, but he and Earl don’t make them for other people. Until Rachel.

Rachel has leukemia, and Greg’s mom gets the genius idea that Greg should befriend her. Against his better judgment and despite his extreme awkwardness, he does. When Rachel decides to stop treatment, Greg and Earl make her a movie, and Greg must abandon invisibility and make a stand. It’s a hilarious, outrageous, and truthful look at death and high school by a prodigiously talented debut author.

Editorial Reviews

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.

About the Author

Jesse Andrews is a writer, musician, and former German youth hostel receptionist. He is a graduate of Schenley High School and Harvard University and lives in Brooklyn, New York, which is almost as good as Pittsburgh. This is his first novel. Visit him online at www.jesseandrews.com.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Amulet Books (March 1, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1419701762
• ISBN-13: 978-1419701764
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #147,335 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A good "cancer book" March 2, 2012

By YA book lover

Format:Hardcover

"Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" was my second "cancer book" in as many months. Although both Jesse Andrews and John Green had the same intention - to write a story about cancer that was different from those other tearjerky novels, in my eyes, Andrews was much more successful at stepping away from melodrama and cliches of the genre than Green. Of course, Andrews does not (yet) have a publicity platform of Green's magnitude to promote his novel, so I am glad to be able to help him out a little, because, from my perspective, "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" is a better, more honest, more real book than "The Fault in Our Stars."

It is better mainly because it does not try to force you into feeling all the obvious things we are expected to feel reading stories about young, terminally ill characters. There is a certain compulsion to idealize cancer kids, lives ending so tragically early and all that. It is also pretty common to practically guilt you into feeling sorry for their specific predicament. But I like that Andrews allows his characters, even his hero, to be resentful and maybe indifferent towards or burdened by the illness, that his cancer-stricken patient is not an ever-so-wise, heroic saint, that there are maybe no life lessons to learn from such personal tragedies. Maybe having a dying girl in your life is just an event that will affect you in a major way, or maybe it will not and that would be okay, too.

"Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" is not all about cancer though, in fact, the dying girl subplot plays only a relatively small part in Greg's story. It is more about Greg defining himself, stopping to play so safe, about bringing a little more focus onto his future and about understanding of who he is. The author might be a little coy repeating again and again in his narrative that there is no point to this novel, but there is one.

Another good thing about "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" is that it is very funny. The success of the book with a reader will depend a lot on what he/she finds funny though, because, admittedly, the novel is filled with jokes of the bathroom variety, you know, boogers, boobs and boners. But it was funny to me nevertheless.

Great dialogue, self-deprecating humor (albeit occasionally too self-deprecating to be not annoying), vulgarity, wacky secondary characters, fresh (to me) approach to portraying cancer - I enjoyed it all and I hope you will too.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Pretty much as good as it gets February 28, 2012

By Robby Werner

Format:Hardcover

I read a lot of contemporary fiction. This book is among the Top Five of anything I've read in the last couple of years. I wish I could express, in as clever and funny way as its author, the kind of praise this novel deserves. Full disclosure: I am the author's uncle. And he knows if this book sucked I would say so. It definitely doesn't suck. There is an exchange between Greg and Earl where I had to stop reading because I was laughing so hard. The last several pages of the narrative, the denouement if you will, is among the most poignant, beautiful and cleverly-written prose I have come across. I recommend it without reservation.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Funny, Touching and Impressive Debut February 26, 2012

By Aeicha @ Word Spelunking

Format:Hardcover

Jesse Andrews' Me and Earl and the Dying Girl took me by surprise with its ability to make me laugh, infuriate me and have me on the verge of tears, often in the span of a single page.

Seventeen year Greg Gaines has somehow accomplished the seemingly impossible- made it to his senior year of high school maintaining a "friendly" acquaintanceship with every group/clique in his school without truly belonging to any of them. Greg and his only real friend, Earl, make their own movies but don't share them with anyone else...until Rachel happens. Greg and Rachel were friends when they were younger but haven't spoken in years, but after Rachel is diagnosed with leukemia Greg's mother insists he hang out with her. And somewhere along the way Greg and Earl are roped into making a film for dying Rachel, and Greg's comfortable invisibility vanishes forever.

Moving and poignant in entirely unexpected ways, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is brash, profane, funny, relentlessly honest and at times almost hard to take, but in the best way possible. This isn't your clichéd sappy, profound YA "cancer" book full of true love or life affirming moments...so if that's the kind of story you're looking for then this book probably isn't for you.

The writing style in this book is to the point, unique and quite addicting. I read this book in one sitting, simply unable to put it down and the Greg's story has continued to stick with me. Andrews offers readers a coming of age story that is heartbreaking and intense, but also easy and okay to laugh with and even at. With a pitch perfect voice, tone and dialogue this book feels and sounds authentic.

Greg Gaines is not always an easy character to like, nor do I think he is supposed to be, but he is always easy to relate to. Awkward (at times painfully so), unintentionally inconsiderate and insensitive, and at time abrasively humorous, he is both uniquely Greg and just like every other high school kid. I didn't always like his choices or how he treated people, but I always felt invested in his story. Earl is an incredibly realistic and well-crafted character. There's something oddly complex and endearing in his simplicity and unabashed honesty. Then there's Rachel, the dying girl. I found myself neither loving nor hating Rachel, which I like to think is exactly what Andrews intended. I truly felt for her character, but I appreciated the fact that Andrews didn't insist or force his readers to love her simply because she has cancer.

Throughout the book Greg insists that it isn't a book where the characters all learn profound life lessons...and it really isn't. But that's okay. And that in itself is pretty profound.

MY FINAL THOUGHTS: Jesse Andrews' Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a refreshingly eclectic, and at time weird story that explores the pain, awkwardness and unexpectedness that comes with growing up. Is this book for everyone? No. The subject matter, although approached with humor, is often intense and dark, but strikingly deep. I found Me and Earl and the Dying Girl to be an enjoyable and touching debut novel.