On March 1, 2012, Jessie Anderws published his first novel, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. The story follows a young man forced out of his comfort zone to console an old friend, now a leukemia patient. You might be thinking, “he’ll probably go on a great journey through his own mind in order to learn a valuable lesson about life or mortality or something nice.” A heartwarming and simple story to write for a debut novel.
In reality, there is no warming of any hearts in this book. In fact, if you put it close enough to your heart, it would probably get a few degrees colder. This book is nothing but quips, mistakes, self degradation, and regret. Yet it still manages to be funny even while dealing with such a morbid topic.
It is as if the title characters of “Beavis and Butthead” wrote The Fault In Our Stars and it was still somehow legible. This book, as said by the narrator and protagonist themselves, is a moronic disaster from start to finish. This book is the story of Greg S. Gaines, told in the past tense from the perspective of Gaines himself.
Greg had one goal in life: to graduate high school with as little attention as possible. All things considered, he was doing pretty well. He knew everybody, but nobody knew him, and nobody had a real opinion of him. Almost nobody. Greg has one friend by the name of Earl, a rugged man living inside a dumpster of a house with his brutal siblings and absent parents. Even with Greg’s home life with an obsessive mother and debatably insane father, Greg still has it quite a bit better than Earl.
Together, Greg and Earl bond over amateur filmmaking. However, Greg’s goal of invisibility shattered when his mom pushed him to meet up with an old “friend” (more like a strange acquaintance) called Rachel, who was recently diagnosed with leukemia, in hopes to try to cheer her up. However, words and jokes can only get so far, especially considering they had an awkward and petty relationship at best. So instead, he decides to make a video to commemorate her life. This goes as well as a desperate high school senior using a cheap camera to make a memorial video can go. In other words, it went horribly. Throughout Greg’s efforts to cheer her up and make the video, Greg pushes his school life, social life and most of his dignity aside in the most comically unfortunate way possible. Things may not turn out okay for Greg, Earl and especially Rachel; but Greg has just enough determination in him to see it through.
What truly makes this book notable, however, is that the story is completely and utterly inappropriate, which is part of why it was banned in a Florida school district. There’s almost not a single page without a swear word, and not a single chapter that doesn’t make a sex joke. In fact, two of the chapters of the book are quite literally called “Phone sex.” This book takes the mind of the teenage boy, and somehow manages to over exaggerate that. It takes the maturity of a usual “coming-of-age-from-cancer” book, kicks it to the curb, spits in its face, steals its spleen and then runs off. Just to accentuate how wild this book is, let me quote some of my favorite lines:
“I have no idea how to write this stupid book.” – Literally the first line in the book.
“I, THE WRATH OF GOD, WILL MARRY MY OWN DAUGHTER, AND TOGETHER WE SHALL START THE PUREST DYNASTY THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN” – Chapter eleven’s title.
“Why is Earl combining food and oral sex?” – Rachel.
“Two words: mucus explosion.” -Greg.
“Let’s just say that it would explain a lot of things if there was a fungus eating my brain. Although that fungus would have to have been eating my brain for basically my entire life. At this point it’s possible that the fungus has gotten bored and left, or died from malnutrition or something.” -Greg.
“The Greg S. Gaines three-step method to seduction:
1. Lurch into girl’s bedroom pretending to be a Zombie.
2. Go for a fist pound.
3. suggest that you habitually [you’ll have to find out for yourself] all over pillows.” -Greg.
These are all lines that are actually in the book.
In a book as insane as this, it comes as a surprise that there are still serious things to be taken away. The book shows themes of regret, living without goals and death in a genuine way. Greg isn’t a comedian, and he takes life seriously. He expresses real fear about what people think of him and what he’s going to do after this part of his life. It is also shown that he has a lot of regret from how he’s lived his life, and it has taken a toll on him. But he only ever expresses his distress in the most emotional moments.
The purest display of this novel’s serious moments comes at the very end. Where, as Greg is breaking down in tears, he says,“there was just something about her dying that I had understood but not really understood. you can know someone is dying on an intellectual level, but emotionally it hasn’t really hit you, and then when it does, that’s when you feel like shit.”
This line perfectly exemplifies how the story can be serious without losing the tone that makes this book so iconic. The heavy emotions in the novel makes it less of a pure comedy, and more of a real “cancer book,” just in the eyes of someone who is not so mature.
But do these qualities redeem the novel? And does it justify its inclusion on Middleton High School (MHS) shelves? It should come as no surprise that this book has faced controversies and bans. But unlike other books that have received bans, such as 1984, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Hate U Give and countless other books about LGBTQ+ and marginalized individuals, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl has no political or social message to be censored, and sexual themes are used in a less-than-tasteful manner, serving almost entirely as punchlines and rarely as important plot points. Therefore, it’s significantly more justifiable why this book shouldn’t be in the hands of a high school student.
Yet, I think it fits right in. It’s crude and grounded in a way that makes Greg feel like an actual teenager who’s saying and doing things that we probably shouldn’t know about, yet are laughing about anyway. In that way, it’s perfect for teens who laugh at absurdity while still understanding a story. I don’t think that teenagers reading swear words is the biggest issue of today, and this book’s humor and storytelling bring back a love for reading I lost a long time ago. For that, I’m grateful that MHS carries this book, even if it is so crude and wild. It’s also unlikely that this book is teaching them anything they probably shouldn’t know and didn’t already, especially considering some of the signs this school has had to put up.
But should you read Me and Earl and the Dying Girl? I mean, I loved it. I have genuinely not audibly laughed out loud because of a book since I saw my elementary school teacher read The Book with No Pictures during an assembly back in kindergarten. The book did tug at my feelings at the end as well, so much so that it almost instantly became my favorite– so I really hope I’ve done it justice.
However, to say that reviews on this book are split is the understatement of the month, year, decade and century. Some people love it just as much as I’ve had, while others despise everything about it. Some think that Greg’s personality reflected a real high school student well, while others say he was too unlikable and edgy. Some think it’s hilarious, others think it’s boring and crass. Some think that it laughs in the face of other “cancer-books”, while others think it’s trying way too hard to be different, and suffers for it.
There’s no real way to tell you if this book will be obnoxious or incredibly funny. It’s really up to you as the reader. But know that this is nothing like any book I’ve ever thought I would see in a school library, and I would recommend everyone to at least check it out.
And if you do take a glance and hate it, in the words of Greg himself:“If after reading this book you come to my home and brutally murder me, I do not blame you.”
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