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3.39 AVERAGE
3.39 AVERAGE
Meh. Too teenagery. The book is beautiful though - great illustrations and paper. Too bad the story didn't live up.
I was stupid, the official descriptive phrase for happy.
Daniel Handler - better know to most as Lemony Snicket - chronicles the short, sweet and yet not so sweet relationship of Min Green and Ed Slaterton, an "arty" girl and the co-captain of the bastketball team. Min wants to explain to Ed the real reasons why they broke up and so she writes him a letter as she drives to give him a box containing all the things she's kept from their relationship (each illustrated beautifully by Maira Kalman). Through a series of seemingly innocuous objects and her own heartfelt words, Min tells their story in perhaps the most true-to-life love story I have ever come across.
Handler's stream-of-conciousness writing style, whilst it may be confusing at first, is perfectly executed and ideal for the story - it gives it the raw edge that makes the story so truthful. Nothing is held back and nothing is unwritten. Min spills her heart onto the pages, and shows us the truth of first love that nearly all of us may will experience: being so caught up in the thrill of newness that we don't see the huge, glaring faults that lie in front of us.
Handler's characters won't fail to capture you; Min is truthful, Ed is loveable yet caddish, and Al is the best friend we all wish to have.
If you like love stories, this book is for you. If you don't, it's still for you, and that's the beauty in it; it is perfect in every possible way.
Daniel Handler - better know to most as Lemony Snicket - chronicles the short, sweet and yet not so sweet relationship of Min Green and Ed Slaterton, an "arty" girl and the co-captain of the bastketball team. Min wants to explain to Ed the real reasons why they broke up and so she writes him a letter as she drives to give him a box containing all the things she's kept from their relationship (each illustrated beautifully by Maira Kalman). Through a series of seemingly innocuous objects and her own heartfelt words, Min tells their story in perhaps the most true-to-life love story I have ever come across.
Handler's stream-of-conciousness writing style, whilst it may be confusing at first, is perfectly executed and ideal for the story - it gives it the raw edge that makes the story so truthful. Nothing is held back and nothing is unwritten. Min spills her heart onto the pages, and shows us the truth of first love that nearly all of us may will experience: being so caught up in the thrill of newness that we don't see the huge, glaring faults that lie in front of us.
Handler's characters won't fail to capture you; Min is truthful, Ed is loveable yet caddish, and Al is the best friend we all wish to have.
If you like love stories, this book is for you. If you don't, it's still for you, and that's the beauty in it; it is perfect in every possible way.
3.5 Stars.
I didn’t know what to expect going into this one but I was pleased with what I got.
This definitely isn’t one of my all time favourite books but I really couldn’t put it down. Once I got into it, I was in it to win it. There’s something about Handler/Snicket’s writing that’s always captivated me and makes me want to pick up another book of his, whether I hated or loved the last one I read.
Pages 335-338. Come ON. Those pages there would’ve been enough for me to give this book a 4 star review- at least. I felt those emotions, those pathetic feelings that Min feels so deeply that my heart couldn’t help but ache for her.
Otherwise, I thought this book was alright. I’ve been more heartbroken from a book before and I wasn’t the biggest fan of the characters. It just wasn’t my favourite.
You either have the feeling or you don’t.
I didn’t know what to expect going into this one but I was pleased with what I got.
This definitely isn’t one of my all time favourite books but I really couldn’t put it down. Once I got into it, I was in it to win it. There’s something about Handler/Snicket’s writing that’s always captivated me and makes me want to pick up another book of his, whether I hated or loved the last one I read.
Pages 335-338. Come ON. Those pages there would’ve been enough for me to give this book a 4 star review- at least. I felt those emotions, those pathetic feelings that Min feels so deeply that my heart couldn’t help but ache for her.
Otherwise, I thought this book was alright. I’ve been more heartbroken from a book before and I wasn’t the biggest fan of the characters. It just wasn’t my favourite.
You either have the feeling or you don’t.
First of all I just want to say that the artwork and the cover of this book is absolutely gorgeous and I think that it really added to the story.
My biggest fault with this book was the writing style. It was a struggle for me to read this book at times because the writing style was so different. I'm surprised that most of the sentences in this book were not considered run-on. I also did not really like the main romance that went on in this book - which was kind of the main focus of the book. I just felt zero chemistry between the two characters, and I really did not care for the male in the relationship. Despite these faults that I had with the book I still enjoyed it and I wanted to keep reading to find out what happens next. Overall a pretty decent read.
My biggest fault with this book was the writing style. It was a struggle for me to read this book at times because the writing style was so different. I'm surprised that most of the sentences in this book were not considered run-on. I also did not really like the main romance that went on in this book - which was kind of the main focus of the book. I just felt zero chemistry between the two characters, and I really did not care for the male in the relationship. Despite these faults that I had with the book I still enjoyed it and I wanted to keep reading to find out what happens next. Overall a pretty decent read.
What is there to love about a book so sad, and angry, and the character so bitter about how her relationship with the school's resident popular guy turned out, well, quite a fiasco? A lot. When you put in Daniel Handler, the author of the highly acclaimed author of the well-loved children's classic, A Series of Unfortunate Events, into the mix. That, and the prose so beautifully written, like a real teenage girl would have penned down a letter to an ex, explaining why they broke up.
Min, seventeen, is breaking up with her boyfriend of two months. In a box full of mementos of their short-lived love affair, she writes him a very long letter putting in plain words every sad things of why she called it quits with him and dumps the box onto her ex’s doorstep.
"I'm dumping the whole box back into your life, Ed, every item of you and me. I'm dumping this box on your porch, Ed, but it is you, Ed, who is getting dumped.”
Ed Slaterton, jock, captain of the varsity team, all-around mister hot guy, has never been in love (this is a funny thing to say for someone who has a lot of girls running after him and dating him) until an “arty” girl comes along. A girl so different from the typical I-give-you-flowers-and-chocolates girls he courted, like the I-couldn’t-care-less Alaska to I-‘ve-always-lived-on-the-safe-side Pudge of Looking for Alaska, or the ever optimistic Susan Caraway to Leo Borlock’s cynical ‘tude in Spinelli’s Stargirl. Ed is at the top, Min is at the bottom rung of the ladder, and this unlikely pair falls head over heels for each other.
And then Ed does something so wrong, the very reason of the split up of the star-crossed love affair, and the dramarama, that is the long letter written by Min to Ed, begins.
Reading Handler’s Why We Broke Up, I thought the style was widely divergent to that of A Series of Unfortunate Events, a thirteen book series that has ended not so long ago. Written in epistolary form, non-bookworms may get turned off a bit, what with Min jumping from one story to another and going back the next, it can get really confusing to the readers, even to Ed, whom the letter is addressed. But that ends after twenty pages maybe, because you get used to the style, vignette, and I for one, fell in love with Min’s voice and felt the same things she did as she recounted the good and the bad things that have happened in their relationship.
And like Min, readers are going to fall for Ed’s character. I did. He’s not one of those one-dimensional jocks who are out to sleep with every girl at school like most do in other young adult novels. To him, Min is the girl he is looking for, at least that is what the readers are made to believe in the first half of the book, and while he has done something so bad that ruined them, he feels sorry for what he did and tries, although not very hard, to win this girl he finds different back.
Why We Broke Up is one of those clichéd stories of young love and heartbreak that is made entirely into something run-of-the-mill-esque. An ordinary story crafted into something out of the ordinary. And not to mention Maira Kalman’s illustrations that added color to the book, making the readers look forward for more in every turn of the page.
Min, seventeen, is breaking up with her boyfriend of two months. In a box full of mementos of their short-lived love affair, she writes him a very long letter putting in plain words every sad things of why she called it quits with him and dumps the box onto her ex’s doorstep.
"I'm dumping the whole box back into your life, Ed, every item of you and me. I'm dumping this box on your porch, Ed, but it is you, Ed, who is getting dumped.”
Ed Slaterton, jock, captain of the varsity team, all-around mister hot guy, has never been in love (this is a funny thing to say for someone who has a lot of girls running after him and dating him) until an “arty” girl comes along. A girl so different from the typical I-give-you-flowers-and-chocolates girls he courted, like the I-couldn’t-care-less Alaska to I-‘ve-always-lived-on-the-safe-side Pudge of Looking for Alaska, or the ever optimistic Susan Caraway to Leo Borlock’s cynical ‘tude in Spinelli’s Stargirl. Ed is at the top, Min is at the bottom rung of the ladder, and this unlikely pair falls head over heels for each other.
And then Ed does something so wrong, the very reason of the split up of the star-crossed love affair, and the dramarama, that is the long letter written by Min to Ed, begins.
Reading Handler’s Why We Broke Up, I thought the style was widely divergent to that of A Series of Unfortunate Events, a thirteen book series that has ended not so long ago. Written in epistolary form, non-bookworms may get turned off a bit, what with Min jumping from one story to another and going back the next, it can get really confusing to the readers, even to Ed, whom the letter is addressed. But that ends after twenty pages maybe, because you get used to the style, vignette, and I for one, fell in love with Min’s voice and felt the same things she did as she recounted the good and the bad things that have happened in their relationship.
And like Min, readers are going to fall for Ed’s character. I did. He’s not one of those one-dimensional jocks who are out to sleep with every girl at school like most do in other young adult novels. To him, Min is the girl he is looking for, at least that is what the readers are made to believe in the first half of the book, and while he has done something so bad that ruined them, he feels sorry for what he did and tries, although not very hard, to win this girl he finds different back.
Why We Broke Up is one of those clichéd stories of young love and heartbreak that is made entirely into something run-of-the-mill-esque. An ordinary story crafted into something out of the ordinary. And not to mention Maira Kalman’s illustrations that added color to the book, making the readers look forward for more in every turn of the page.
Bien, fue un libro... entretenido. He leído peores y mejores, sinceramente. Había esperado más, mucho más de lo que fue.
Min, la protagonista que narró toda la gran carta, era una idiota. Una de las peores protagonistas que leí. No entendía la mayoría del tiempo de lo que hablaba, ya que todo lo comparaba con películas extrañas.
Solo le pongo tres estrellas por el hecho de que no fue el peor libro del mundo, pero he de admitir que me costó mucho terminarlo.
Min, la protagonista que narró toda la gran carta, era una idiota. Una de las peores protagonistas que leí. No entendía la mayoría del tiempo de lo que hablaba, ya que todo lo comparaba con películas extrañas.
Solo le pongo tres estrellas por el hecho de que no fue el peor libro del mundo, pero he de admitir que me costó mucho terminarlo.
From the first page you can tell that this is not your typical Young Adult novel. Just by lifting this brick of a book you can tell it will be different by the very weight of in, and then when you take a quick flip through you will notice the numerous beautiful pictures that have been added to the story.
When I saw this book for the first time I really thought it would be a good story, but it hurts me to say that that was not so. From the very beginning you begin to notice that a very important piece of the book is missing, though I myself can not quite figure out what that would be. It's almost as if the path that a book is supposed to take to complete the story has been knocked out from under it, though at the same time you know that this is a story of the two people breaking up just from the title.
Other than the pictures, one of the most distinct characteristics of this book is that the book is told in second person, which if you do not know, means that the narrator is speaking directly to a specific person, by using the word you, as in You said... I don't think I have ever read a book in second person before. It's a very interesting way of reading.
The ending was the part of the book that will probably be most memorable for me, though I promise I will not tell you why they broke up, I will say that it is like a slap in the face for the readers as well as the characters. It reminds you that all books will not have happy endings, just like in life.
When I saw this book for the first time I really thought it would be a good story, but it hurts me to say that that was not so. From the very beginning you begin to notice that a very important piece of the book is missing, though I myself can not quite figure out what that would be. It's almost as if the path that a book is supposed to take to complete the story has been knocked out from under it, though at the same time you know that this is a story of the two people breaking up just from the title.
Other than the pictures, one of the most distinct characteristics of this book is that the book is told in second person, which if you do not know, means that the narrator is speaking directly to a specific person, by using the word you, as in You said... I don't think I have ever read a book in second person before. It's a very interesting way of reading.
The ending was the part of the book that will probably be most memorable for me, though I promise I will not tell you why they broke up, I will say that it is like a slap in the face for the readers as well as the characters. It reminds you that all books will not have happy endings, just like in life.
I really didn't enjoy this book. For me personally it was written in a very confusing way. None of the characters were developed very well. For example all you knew about Ed was that he was Mr. Basketball. Even the main character was poorly developed you knew nothing about her back story and what made her who she was. The only good part about this book happened on page 330 or something; when you found out Ed had "cheated" on Min. That the only interesting part about this whole book. Besides the awful writing I think the art was really good. Unlike the writing it added to the story.
I didn’t love this book when I read it, but now a few years have past and I find myself reminded of it often, especially whenever I hear the song Brando by Lucy Dacus.