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A review by boezaaah
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
1.0
“If after reading this book you come to my home and brutally murder me, I do not blame you.”
I'm coming to your home and brutally murdering you.
This was disappointing. I bought this book a few years ago, and I'm sure 13 year old me would have loved this, but I'm also glad I didn't read this back then. It really was not good. I've already forgotten the dying girl's name and by tomorrow I'll have forgotten the entire plot. The only plus is the fact that it's a fast read, but that's hardly exclusive to this contemporary specifically. I wouldn't recommend this.
First of all, who wants to read from the perspective of a 17 year old boy (in general), who is a complete brat and has no sympathy for a girl that is DYING. Throughout this entire book, our main character Greg complained that she was 'ruining his life' for being diagnosed with CANCER. He only realised how severe this was when she was diagnosed with pneumonia before she died. I hate Greg. And Earl... homophobic fuck.
Using gay people as a comic relief? The amount of gay jokes from straight kids was so excessive, and not only were they horrible in general... there was not one gay character in this book.
With reference to pages 206 and 207:
"So you can be a heterosexual, or a homosexual, and I feel like I understand that, like you're a woman in a man's body or some shit, but I been thinking about it and how the fuck can somebody call theyself a bisexual."
"If you're seriously like, "For real, I'm bisexual, any person can get me hard," man, you must get a hard-on from all kinds of freaky shit."
"Dog taking a dump: hard-on. Wendy's double cheeseburger: hard-on. Computer virus that destroys all your shit: hard-on."
What the fuck? Transphobia? Being transgender is nowhere near the same being gay. Gender and sexuality are two completely different concepts. And the amount of biphobia on these two pages was unbelievable. If little 13 year old me had read this, I would probably still be denying my sexuality. I've never felt so invalidated reading a book before. I hated this with every ounce of my being. I'm surprised I didn't put it down
If I go any further with this review I'll end up causing Goodreads to crash. But anyway. If you didn't read the spoiler section, just know I hated all the characters, the plot was boring and not only was there no representation whatsoever, I've never read such horrible things about the LGBTQIA+ community. I would never recommend this to anyone. If you want a good contemporary, read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz.
I'm coming to your home and brutally murdering you.
This was disappointing. I bought this book a few years ago, and I'm sure 13 year old me would have loved this, but I'm also glad I didn't read this back then. It really was not good. I've already forgotten the dying girl's name and by tomorrow I'll have forgotten the entire plot. The only plus is the fact that it's a fast read, but that's hardly exclusive to this contemporary specifically. I wouldn't recommend this.
Using gay people as a comic relief? The amount of gay jokes from straight kids was so excessive, and not only were they horrible in general... there was not one gay character in this book.
With reference to pages 206 and 207:
"So you can be a heterosexual, or a homosexual, and I feel like I understand that, like you're a woman in a man's body or some shit, but I been thinking about it and how the fuck can somebody call theyself a bisexual."
"If you're seriously like, "For real, I'm bisexual, any person can get me hard," man, you must get a hard-on from all kinds of freaky shit."
"Dog taking a dump: hard-on. Wendy's double cheeseburger: hard-on. Computer virus that destroys all your shit: hard-on."
What the fuck? Transphobia? Being transgender is nowhere near the same being gay. Gender and sexuality are two completely different concepts. And the amount of biphobia on these two pages was unbelievable. If little 13 year old me had read this, I would probably still be denying my sexuality. I've never felt so invalidated reading a book before. I hated this with every ounce of my being. I'm surprised I didn't put it down
If I go any further with this review I'll end up causing Goodreads to crash. But anyway. If you didn't read the spoiler section, just know I hated all the characters, the plot was boring and not only was there no representation whatsoever, I've never read such horrible things about the LGBTQIA+ community. I would never recommend this to anyone. If you want a good contemporary, read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz.