Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

by Jesse Andrews Narrated by Thomas Mann, RJ Cyler, Various

Overview

THE BOOK THAT INSPIRED THE HIT FILM!

Up until senior year, Greg has maintained total social invisibility. He only has one friend, Earl, and together they spend their time-when not playing video games and avoiding Earl's terrifying brothers- making movies, their own versions of Coppola and Herzog cult classics. Greg would be the first one to tell you his movies are f*@$ing terrible, but he and Earl don't make them for other people. Until Rachel.

Rachel has leukemia, and Greg's mom gets the genius idea that Greg should befriend her. Against his better judgment and despite his extreme awkwardness, he does. When Rachel decides to stop treatment, Greg and Earl must abandon invisibility and make a stand. It's a hilarious, outrageous, and truthful look at death and high school by a prodigiously talented debut author.

This audiobook is read by the stars of the movie adaptation,*Thomas Mann and RJ Cyler, as well as Keith Szarabajka, Hillary Huber, Kirby Heyborne, Abigail Revasch, and Adenrele Ojo.

Editorial Reviews

JULY 2015 - AudioFile

Narrator Thomas Mann is flawless as insecure high school senior Greg Gaines. Based on a shared love of filmmaking, Greg establishes an unlikely friendship with Earl, an African-American teen from a dysfunctional family. Greg has cultivated "invisibility" in school, but that changes when his mother insists he befriend the dying Rachel. First-person narration allows Mann to channel the paradox that is Greg. We hear his muttered responses to girls while at the same time being privy to his humorously insightful self-examinations. R.J. Cyler portrays Earl, whose street-talking honesty is in sharp contrast to Greg's reticence. As the two friends make their movies, listeners are treated to scenes—complete with narrator, setting, and script notes. L.T. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

In his debut novel, Andrews tackles some heavy subjects with irreverence and insouciance. Senior Greg Gaines has drifted through high school trying to be friendly with everyone but friends with no one, moving between cliques without committing. His only hobby is making awful movies with his foul-mouthed pal Earl. Greg’s carefully maintained routine is upset when his mother encourages him to spend time with Rachel, a classmate suffering from leukemia. Greg begrudgingly rekindles his friendship with Rachel, before being conned into making a movie about her. Narrated by Greg, who brings self-deprecation to new heights (or maybe depths), this tale tries a little too hard to be both funny and tragic, mixing crude humor and painful self-awareness. Readers may be either entertained or exhausted by the grab bag of narrative devices Andrews employs (screenplay-style passages, bulleted lists, movie reviews, fake newspaper headlines, outlines). In trying to defy the usual tearjerker tropes, Andrews ends up with an oddly unaffecting story. Ages 14–up. Agent: Matt Hudson, William Morris Endeavor. (Mar.)

VOYA

It is sure to be popular with many boys, including reluctant readers, and will not require much selling on the part of the librarian."

starred review Booklist

**STARRED REVIEW**
“One need only look at the chapter titles (“Let’s Just Get This Embarrassing Chapter Out of the Way”) to know that this is one funny book.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Mr. Andrews' often hilarious teen dialogue is utterly convincing, and his characters are compelling. Greg's random sense of humor, terrible self-esteem and general lack of self-awareness all ring true. Like many YA authors, Mr. Andrews blends humor and pathos with true skill, but he steers clear of tricky resolutions and overt life lessons, favoring incremental understanding and growth."

Kirkus Reviews

A frequently hysterical confessional from a teen narrator who won't be able to convince readers he's as unlikable as he wants them to believe. "I have no idea how to write this stupid book," narrator Greg begins. Without answering the obvious question--just why is he writing" this stupid book"?--Greg lets readers in on plenty else. His filmmaking ambitions. His unlikely friendship with the unfortunately short, chain-smoking, foulmouthed, African-American Earl of the title. And his unlikelier friendship with Rachel, the titular "dying girl." Punctuating his aggressively self-hating account with film scripts and digressions, he chronicles his senior year, in which his mother guilt-trips him into hanging out with Rachel, who has acute myelogenous leukemia. Almost professionally socially awkward, Greg navigates his unwanted relationship with Rachel by showing her the films he's made with Earl, an oeuvre begun in fifth grade with their remake of Aguirre, Wrath of God. Greg's uber-snarky narration is self-conscious in the extreme, resulting in lines like, "This entire paragraph is a moron." Debut novelist Andrews succeeds brilliantly in painting a portrait of a kid whose responses to emotional duress are entirely believable and sympathetic, however fiercely he professes his essential crappiness as a human being. Though this novel begs inevitable thematic comparisons to John Green's The Fault in Our Stars (2011), it stands on its own in inventiveness, humor and heart. (Fiction. 14 & up)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171991609
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	05/12/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	767,157

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