Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

 

Greg Gaines is the last master of high school espionage, able to disappear at will into any social environment. He has only one friend, Earl, and together they spend their time making movies, their own incomprehensible versions of Coppola and Herzog cult classics.

Until Greg’s mother forces him to rekindle his childhood friendship with Rachel.

Rachel has been diagnosed with leukemia—-cue extreme adolescent awkwardness—-but a parental mandate has been issued and must be obeyed. When Rachel stops treatment, Greg and Earl decide the thing to do is to make a film for her, which turns into the Worst Film Ever Made and becomes a turning point in each of their lives.

And all at once Greg must abandon invisibility and stand in the spotlight. (goodreads.com)

I was definitely a fan of this book. I love the scene that were written in script and the way Greg retold the failed girl encounters of his childhood. When reading this book it truly felt as if Greg was sitting there telling me this story. I really appreciated how Greg compared his story to what we may have expected from reading other stories with similar story lines. He told us that this wasn't going to be a story where he fell in love with the girl who had cancer and she was miraculously cured, he told us that this wasn't going to be a story where the girl died but left her mark of the lives of others. Greg's way of telling his story was almost perfect because the reality of life is that not every story has a beautiful ending, but you just have to live with it.

I will say that at times I felt like Greg was a little on the immature side for a high school senior and it did pull me from the story sometimes. Other than that, I was pretty happy. I give this somewhere between 3.5 and 4 stars, lets go with 3.75