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A review by danelleeb
Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler
3.0
Min Green is a junior at Hellman High School - though she doesn't seem to be your typical high school student - coffee-addicted, fanatical about those vintagey, out-of-the-way shops, and obsessed with movies from the 30's (?) She spends her time with her "arty" or "different" group of friends who like to plan dinner parties with extensive themes and exotic foods. Min meets (and later begins dating, and absolutely falls stupidly in love with) Ed Slaterton - senior, co-captain of the basketball team, most popular guy in school, and complete opposite of Min, at one of these parties. Why We Broke Up is exactly what it says it is, it's a letter accompanying a box of trinkets from Ed and Min's short relationship; a letter detailing what everying in the box is, and why Min is giving it all back. It's Min's narrative on every big date, lazy afternoon, or important moment in the time they spent together, what it meant to her, and why she can't keep it anymore.
It's the oldest story, right? This mis-matched couple, doomed from the start with each of the love-struck's group of friends circling like the gangs in the knife fight scene of Michael Jackson's video for his song Bad. Everyone feeling a bit jealous that it seems to be working out when really it shouldn't (and it doesn't, really, ever)and we know it didn't because the story is titled, "Why We Broke Up." It's an innovative way to tell the story of a high school broken heart. The accompanying illustrations are nice, but they are just pictures of artifacts from the box. Unlike Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret and Wonderstruck, in which the illustrations play an integral part of telling the whole story, the pictures, or rather paintings, in Why We Broke Up are more like 'Exhibit A: movie ticket stub'. They absolutely rely on Min's narrative to explain their significance - but of course they would, that's how this works, this collecting as you go about, stupidly in love. And Min's narrative was good but it did get grating at times, well, most of the time. I could deal with the proliferation of run-on sentences, it was the constant references to these movies she was obsessed with that I got sick of. I'd give this book 3.5 stars, though that seems almost too generous. I'd recommend it for older YA readers - at least high school, as the book gets into everything high school: putting up with parents, underage drinking, cliques, etc.
When it's all said and done, the message in this book is pretty obvious, but one that's lost on a lot of us at this age (high school) or in this state (stupidly in love):
The one who truly loves and cares for you is the one who's been there all along.
It's the oldest story, right? This mis-matched couple, doomed from the start with each of the love-struck's group of friends circling like the gangs in the knife fight scene of Michael Jackson's video for his song Bad. Everyone feeling a bit jealous that it seems to be working out when really it shouldn't (and it doesn't, really, ever)and we know it didn't because the story is titled, "Why We Broke Up." It's an innovative way to tell the story of a high school broken heart. The accompanying illustrations are nice, but they are just pictures of artifacts from the box. Unlike Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret and Wonderstruck, in which the illustrations play an integral part of telling the whole story, the pictures, or rather paintings, in Why We Broke Up are more like 'Exhibit A: movie ticket stub'. They absolutely rely on Min's narrative to explain their significance - but of course they would, that's how this works, this collecting as you go about, stupidly in love. And Min's narrative was good but it did get grating at times, well, most of the time. I could deal with the proliferation of run-on sentences, it was the constant references to these movies she was obsessed with that I got sick of. I'd give this book 3.5 stars, though that seems almost too generous. I'd recommend it for older YA readers - at least high school, as the book gets into everything high school: putting up with parents, underage drinking, cliques, etc.
When it's all said and done, the message in this book is pretty obvious, but one that's lost on a lot of us at this age (high school) or in this state (stupidly in love):
The one who truly loves and cares for you is the one who's been there all along.