Unlikely Cast

Still from Aguirre the Wrath of God

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
New York : Amulet Books, 2015.
295 p. ; 21 cm.

A creative, funny, sometimes vulgar, and ultimately meaningful book about a young man - Greg Gaines - who strives to stay unattached through high school, but ends up pressured by his mother into a relationship with a dying girl - and has to question just who he is and what life means to him.

Part of the wonderful catch to this book is that until he's pushed to be friends with Rachel, the dying girl, Greg has one other "friend" - fellow amateur filmmaker Earl.  Earl and Greg also love film, and the film that they both love best is Werner Herzog's classic, Aguirre the Wrath of God (and so the graphic above).

A lot of the power of this book - which became a bestseller and was well reviewed - owes to it's humor and cynical slant.  Greg is not about to try and learn any deep life lessons from his involvement with Rachel - but he does come to sort of like Rachel in a normal, low-key friendship way.  He also comes to understand that his privileged life is nothing like Earl's life with his intensely dysfunctional family.

There is a lot of bodily, vulgar boy humor in this novel, but that surely is part of what made it successful.  Finally, the movie version of the book did extremely well at Sundance and was bought by by Fox which can only increase the book's appeal.

No Fault, All Star

From John Green's Tumblr - he also is the co-creator of Vlogbrothers - wow!

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
New York : Dutton Books, c2012.
1st ed.
318 p. ; 22 cm.

This is a very popular novel in our library - and this is a beautiful novel.  That is a wonderful thing to be able to write, and I'm really pleased to have recently had to buy a second copy of this novel (and will probably buy a few more when it comes out in paperback).

John Green has always been one of those solid author's in our collection with books like An Abundance of Katherines and Looking for Alaska, but with Fault in Our Stars - there has been a notable uptick in interest in Green.  In fact, I read the book after a couple of students said I had to read it.

It is really a testament to Green's skill as a writer that he takes on such a fraught topic as teens with cancer, and is able to create a deeply moving, tough, realistic, and existentially wonderful love story out of it. 

The story manages to deal with love, art, death, parenting, passion, fear and hope without feeling overwrought and forced. There are a few moments where the characters are just a little to facile with words and "profound," but those moments are few.  The plotting of the novel is also really nice.

Without giving away the plot, I will just say that by the end of the book, Green had me completely swept up in the emotional life of his characters...and it was hard to close the book when I was done.

One last note: the copy I read was loaned to me by a student.  I told her our copy was out and that the next one was on order, but that I wanted to read it soon.  She said, I'll loan you my copy.  Perks of being a librarian!