As the author of this book also said, I’m not sure how to start this review. Nothing about this book was what I expected, and by far, it was definitely the funniest book I’ve ever read about death. People often compare this story to the Fault in our Stars by John Green; and I can see why and why not that is correct.
When I began reading this book, I really thought it would become a love story, but I think was wrong, it wasn’t really a love story in the loving partners kind of way. There was basically no romance involved, which I have to admit I found refreshing because it showed how you can love a friend as just that, a friend. Greg even often eludes to the fact that people believe this would be a love story, but he doesn’t seem to have romantic feelings for Rachel, his friend dying of leukemia; which does make it quite different from the beloved Fault in our Stars by John Green.
We come to learn a lot about Greg’s social circle in the beginning, and the fact is that he both has a huge circle, and a non-existent circle of friends. How is this paradox possible? Greg has developed a strategy of socializing just enough with everyone, to avoid being placed in a single group. (Side note: This is a brilliantly foolish method that has many pros and cons that I will get to later). This senior year strategy is working well until his Mom enlightens him that a sort of ex-girlfriend/never really friend has leukemia. (Greg dated Rachel [a friend from the synagogue] in order to get the attention of the prettiest girl in their class, Leah Katzenberg, and then ignored Rachel once they started to become friends since he never really had feelings for her).
This comes as a surprise to Greg, as he hasn’t really spoken to Rachel in about five years. But his mom suggests that he speak to Rachel, hang out with her more, because she is in deep need of her friends right now. Greg obliges, but has no idea how to approach the situation. How is he supposed to fire up a friendship that ended on such awkward terms? The other thing he has to worry about is that he definitely doesn’t want to start a romance, again because of his lack of romantic feelings for Rachel.
When he finally does call Rachel she doesn’t really want to open up immediately, and she speaks to him in a cold manner. But during the second phone call, to get her sympathy, he tells her that she broke his heart in Hebrew school by being in love with someone else, which was a hundred percent false; but Rachel bought it, and said he could come over. This brings Greg’s one and only legitimate friend into the novel, Earl Jackson. Earl is a short, hilarious, and profane little guy, with a mouth big enough to make up for his height. Earl and Greg have been friends since kindergarden, when they learned they were unlike all the other kids. They saw a movie together, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, and made a remake entitled Earl, the Wrath of God II. This terrible remake launched their filmmaking careers.
As Greg hangs out with Rachel outside school, he can’t just continue to ignore her during school, so he’s seen with a friend, which messes up his strategy of not really having friends and being friends with everyone. Going back to his brilliantly foolish social strategy, Greg mingles with each group in his school, including the Theater Group, Band Geeks, Gothy Dorks, Gangbangers, the Middle Class African American Junior Sub-Clique 4c. The benefit of this strategy is that Greg has no enemies and is included in every group. The problem however, is that this means Greg can’t socialize too much with any one group, can’t eat lunch in the cafeteria, and doesn’t really have any friends besides Earl. So this social strategy is working well until Greg becomes to social with Rachel’s group, the Upper-Middle-Class Senior Jewish Girl Sub-Clique 2a, which also includes Naomi Shapiro and Anna Tuchman. This means Greg makes friends, which in the perverted sick world of High School, means he makes enemies, or at least people who don’t see him as a friend.
As Greg and Earl both come closer to Rachel, she watches some of their movies. No one besides Earl and Greg have ever seen most of their movies; but Rachel laughs through them, and says she likes them. As Rachel goes for chemotherapy and becomes sicker and sicker, there becomes a rift between Greg and Earl. Earl openly criticizes Greg, and Greg is just fine with the beating, literally. But they decide to make one more film together, Rachel the Film, since Madison Hartner, a former crush of Greg’s and current friend of Rachel’s, thought it would definitely cheer Rachel up.
Earl and Greg go through several different ways of making this film, from sock puppets to a screwed-up documentary. But even with the scraps they worked with, Rachel said she liked the movie. This was the point where I was expecting that Greg would gain some confidence in his films, and realize feelings for Rachel, since they knew she was close to the end; but that was not to be. Spoiler alert: Do not read the next paragraph unless you want to know the overall ending of the book.
Rachel Kushner dies ten hours after Greg and his mom leave the hospital because Rachel was admitted with pneumonia on top of her leukemia. Before Rachel died, she told Greg and Earl to apply to film school with the movies they made; however, both boys destroyed their copies.Earl tells Greg that its time to move on, and he can’t make films with Greg anymore, that he needs to support himself; but they don’t really stop being friends. So Greg decides to make new films without Earl. Greg also is admitted into the University of Pittsburg, but suspended because he failed three classes. He wrote this book to the admissions board for them to consider re-admitting him. On the bright side, Greg has decided to un-retire from filmmaking and possibly even apply for film school.
I’ve always held the theory that John Green and Nicholas Sparks get together to write books and see how they can work together to crush the souls of teen readers with their work, seeing as both authors have made me use a few boxes of Kleenex at a time. Don’t get me wrong, they’re both two of my favorite authors, but would it have killed John Green to let Augustus Waters live? Well, in reality, there usually aren’t happy endings. But Jesse Andrews, I think you have joined Green and Sparks, but taken a whole different root, the root of reality.
I’m ecstatic that this book is turning into a movie, but Mr. Andrews, can there be a sequel?
missknowitall17 