Me and Earl and the Dying girl is a wonderful and funny novel about 17 year old Greg Gaines, who’s life flips with one command from his mother. A charming novel about an awkward high school senior who starts his first day of high school with one question, “How is it possible to exist in a place that sucks so bad?” and his solution is to “Get access to every group.” and he does this by trying to maintain an insanely low profile and having no friends except for his almost friend/ co-worker Earl, who makes old film parodies with him.
In this book, Greg documents his life in his senior year as his plan is overrun by his mother, when he’s forced to hang out with his sort-of-ex-girlfriend Rachel, who has just been diagnosed with leukaemia. At first, I really did think that I am going to be reading another version of “The fault in our stars”, or another version of a cancer love story; and the biggest plot twist is introduced in the introduction when Greg Gaines states, “You may have already figured out that it’s about a girl who had cancer. So there’s a chance you’re going to be thinking ‘Awesome! This is going to be a wise and insightful story about love and death and growing up. It is probably going to make me cry literally the entire time. I am so fired up right now.’ If that is an accurate representation of your thoughts, you should probably try to smush this book into a garbage disposal and then run away.” Me and Earl and the Dying girl is about friendship, not love, and it’s about noticing the things surrounding you even after they leave.
One thing I found quite weird in the introduction was Greg answers what the reader questions from the first page of the book by stating; “For me personally, things are less meaningful because I get to know Rachel before she died.” This clarifies Rachel’s expected death from cancer before the novel even begins, which makes the reader understand that the novel is not just about cancer, it is about something far greater than that.
Earl Jackson, Greg’s co-worker is the funny character in the novel, and is truly inspirational as his background doesn’t fit his funny traits. His eccentric family shadowed by the horror of the Jackson brothers and mother only introduced by name, make it very easy to sympathise with Earl as even under his circumstances he still seems to live his life by making silly and boyish jokes about sex and drugs – which I found quite disturbing at times – and create silly films with Greg, and on top of that, Earl is the one who makes Greg realise how significant Rachel is in their lives and how she isn’t just some girl to be playing around with; she has limited and precious time. Earl is the misunderstood and silly guy who is himself all the time, and doesn’t care what others think of him which I think is a key trait.
Rachel Kushner, the frizzy-haired, average looking ex-girlfriend with leukaemia is the heart of the story; even through her condition, she tries to make everyone else feel better when she is the one who’s ill. She hates it when Greg insults himself and she hates it when he isn’t himself. It is so hard to believe that she is sick as she’s funny and understanding and is her own person; she’s not ashamed of the Hugh Jackson posters hung in her bedroom and seems like the average teenage girl, but her traits are so unique and we as readers get to witness these traits develop and fade as she reaches the end of her journey.
A seventeen year old girl being diagnosed with cancer shows that not every life is perfect, and Greg and Rachel form a weird friendship as Greg tries desperately not to get attached to the “Dying girl”; however his attempts to this seem to fail as the films Greg and Earl make act as a medicine for Rachel throughout the book, until Greg feels that it is his duty to make Rachel smile, and towards the end of the novel Greg realises the films he and Earl create and his jokes are the only things that can make Rachel laugh.
Greg does not sympathise with Rachel in any way that the reader forgets about Rachel’s leukaemia; Rachel seems to only notice her near end towards the end of the story which seems to affect Greg as it makes him fall back on school work. The story is slightly emotionless throughout the novel, but when Greg begins to realise how weak Rachel is becoming and tries to make her the happy person she truly is, he and Earl collaborate and create a movie for Rachel, which is the most heartwarming thing he could do as the films were the only thing that made her laugh.
Me and Earl and the Dying girl introduces complex and insane characters; Greg treats people in a careless manner for his amusement and admits that knowing Rachel did not change him; which is ironic to the reader as she might have not been the miracle he has met in life, however she leads him to his miracle which is shown in the novel as there is a light shift at the end of the novel where Greg reveals the purpose behind writing this brilliant story about his insane and awkward life. His invisibility vanishes after the movie he makes for Rachel gets out, and all his work on staying undercover is lost, however, he finds his way back through Rachel’s inspiration.
Rachel’s illness does indirectly impact Greg as he begins to fall back on his school work to create a film titled “Rachel the film” and eventually stops going to school altogether. Before her death, Rachel advises Greg into going into film school and at the end of the novel it is revealed that Greg is writing this novel as an explanation to the University of Pittsburgh, and realises that he was always unhappy because he was always trying to be someone he wasn’t; which was something that always bothered Rachel.
The language used in this novel is very casual as the writer seemed to want to develop a bond between the reader and Greg as it is written in a way that makes it seem like Greg is narrating his life to the reader; which is exactly the author’s purpose.
The main message behind this moving novel is the confusion people go through when they encounter loss, and the way they behave may not show what they are hiding deep inside their hearts; it is okay to be uninspiring to people as long as you are inspired by something that will lead you to your purpose.
A sparkling cinematography with humour and honesty that is recommended to all those young adults who are tired of reading fantasy and dystopian novels and wish to read about some oblivious things that happen in the world surrounding us.
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