> Nº 3 on My 2015 Reading Challenge – A book that became a movie <
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 is an interesting book. I laughed so hard while reading this book, I was having fits on the bus and everything… FUN!
*** Warning, there will be MAJOR SPOILERS, you have been warned ***
The story is interesting enough: boy who just wants to be invisible, with his only friend being more of a co-worker, is forced to bond with dying girl. To top it off, Greg and Earl do movies together, and some of the book is written in script form, which is pretty cool.
The story in itself is not groundbreaking, I think this a story about life happening, that exactly specific events in one’s life. Nothing monumental actually happens in neither of their lives… well, Rachel dies, but that’s about it. It’s not a story about friendship, or young love, or achieving your true potential. It goes a bit like this: Greg doesn’t want friends, Greg is forced to be friends with Rachel, Greg thinks that his job it to make Rachel laugh, Earl becomes friends with her and is able to say so, Greg doesn’t understand why he’s sad that Rachel is worst, Rachel loves the videos, Rachel gets sicker, Greg cries – still doesn’t understand, Rachel dies, Earl sets Greg straight, Greg decides to apply to film school. Sure, in the meantime he kind of grows, they kind of become friends.
I absolutely loved the book, the pacing is good, is easy to read, the story is entertaining, though not very deep (from Greg’s point of view). But I think it will work better on film than on the page.
Why? Well, in the book Greg comes off as a highly unlikable character. I could not stand him. Sure, he says several times that Earl is a better person than he is, but it is actually very true. Earl is great, Rachel is amazing, Greg?! Mehhh!! It’s because he’s always reinforcing the idea that it is not a love story… we get it, then he says several times that he’s only there to make her laugh, he says other stuff that just made me want to slap him. And still, even though the book is narrated by a meehh character, I still quite enjoyed it!
So looking forward to the movie! Especially since the reviews have been great!
Rating: 3.8 Stars
I highly disliked Greg and while I thought the book was hilarious, the language used wasn’t always my thing. Nonetheless, I liked the story and I’m majorly excited for the movie!
I agree about the language, sometimes it was just too much. I think movie-Greg will be a little more likable… at least, I hope
I think he will be. I quite like Thomas Mann, so it’s definitely a start 😉
yep, agree! 😀
oh, and I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like Greg all that much… 🙂
I just didn’t really feel him. I got frustrated with him so quickly, because I didn’t get him. Why couldn’t he just admit that he cares about the people in his life. It annoyed me to no end.
yes. but i thought that he truly didn’t understand that he cared. it wasn’t just that he didn’t admit it, i think he really didn’t have a clue… (he felt quite dumb to me =$ )
Well there’s an IQ and an EQ and some people just don’t have the emotional thing down.
he clearly didn’t…
by the way… I imagine that you have noticed that Adam from UnReal is Cormac McLaggen from Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince… right? I just noticed yesterday and I was in shock!
Oh I did already know that, although I remember him even more for his role in A Cinderella Story: Once Upon a Song hahaha
oh, I did not see that – or I don’t remember. I knew I knew his face from somewhere, but it only clicked a few days ago when I was watching that last episode… lol, he’s all grown up
Oh yes, that he definitely is!
I’ve seen all the Cinderella Story movies hahaha they are not that good but entertaining.
there are several?! It’s the type of movie I’ll watch certainly if it’s on tv on a lazy sunday, back home.
Yep there are several hahaha There’s “Cinderella Story” with Hillary Duff and Chad Michael Murray and then there’s “Another Cinderella Story” with Selena Gomez and Drew Seeley and lastly there’s “Cinderella Story: Once Upon a Song” with Lucy Hale and Freddie Stroma. I don’t know if they actually belong together but the story is always kind of the same. I love Cinderella Story most though, the others are more silly.
wow… those are a LOT of cinderellas… I guess I saw the one with Hilary Duff, back in the day, the others I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen.
They’re funny but nothing extraordinary
I just watched the shadowhunter cast play werewolf and I can’t believe how much fun it was to just watch people scream at each other. It was hilarious, especially the Dom-Matt-dynamic is great. They’re like real-life Jace and Alec.
YES! There’s chemistry there, it’s amazing 😀 I’m really excited about this, mainly because of the cast
The cast really does EVERYTHING right it seems. They are engaging and likable and open. We haven’t even seen an episode yet and most fans are in awe of them already.
yeah, and they’re interacting so much with the fans. even the producers, trainers, etc, they have all been so nice, thanking the fandom, thanking Cassandra Clare…. it’s nice 🙂
when the show actually starts, everyone will be already a bit in love with the characters, cast and crew – which I hope will translate into a renovation as soon as the first episode airs
Absolutely, I already want the show to continue for ages without having seen it hahaha
And they are truly all so nice! It’s really terrible to think that Cassandra Clare quit Twitter because some fans hated the new cast and wanted her to take their side. Apparently the fandom-fight escalated and she said she’d retreat forms social media 😦
yes, I saw it… it wasn’t just the cast, I think. Some people from the websites got the scripts and started to complain about the changes they didn’t like, for example, the character Dottie being a close friend of Clary and Jocelyn, instead of the Dorothea from the book.
They said terrible things, i honestly do not understand it.
This will be a show, they’ll have to fill the episodes, obviously some things will be different, they have to be. So what that Valentine doesn’t have white hair, you know? It really doesn’t matter.
She has been back to twitter now for a week or so. It’s all good! 😀
People are lucky, not that many authors take so much of their time to have chats on social media every day.
I didn’t know the full spectrum of the fight, I just thought it was really sad. I mean it’s okay to be doubtful and not overly enthusiastic if you don’t agree with the choices they made, but that doesn’t entitle them to get mean and disrespectful. You can never tell how something turns out before you’ve actually seen it.
I’m glad she’s back, but I read an MTV interview with her and another author and they talked about how difficult it an be to handle such a big fandom and how they feel like some of them don’t even treat them like people anymore.
yes, it’s so sad! I don’t get it, honestly. How can the fandom forget that the authors are real people and deserve the utmost respect?!
This week there has also been some kind of controversy with John Green, people online accused him of something, I guess.
Holly Black (who writes Iron Trial with Cassie) posted yesterday defending both her friends and alerting people that what they’re doing is wrong…
Yeah, I don’t get it either!
John Green was accused of sexual harassment of minors or something like that. I don’t get why people would make up something like that. It’s just beyond me.
It’s the freaking power of social media!
I hate it sometimes. I’m older than you, so more than half of my life I lived in the world where the internet existed, but was not ubiquitous, actually, I started using social media, YouTube and being online 24/4 fairly recently (no more than 5/6 years), so THIS scares me. A LOT!
I read a crappy book last week, but it said something like: “if what you’re putting online doesn’t contribute to the world’s ‘happiness’, don’t post it.” – it’s so true.
People can say what they like online, it’s always easier behind a screen, and they can destroy anyone’s life they want, if only they have enough of an audience.
It IS scary! And like everything stays on the Internet too, even if you try all you can to get rid of it, it just pops up somewhere else.
I think you should be able to express your opinion, but in a well-mannered and reasonable way. If you didn’t like something, explain why and give constructive feedback. Just bashing something doesn’t help anyone.
yes! because giving an opinion doesn’t mean you have to bring other people down.
And mostly, you should never make things up about another person’s personal lives. It’s so mean.
unfortunately there is a whole generation that somehow thinks this is ok, to internet-bully, to say whatever on twitter, post whatever they like on facebook… it’s sad!
It’s terrible. Any kind of bullying is beyond my understanding. I would never treat anyone like that, not even someone I don’t like.
There’s this movie coming out “A Girl Like Her” and I really want to watch it. I’ve heard great things about it and its supposed to be an amazing piece detailing on bullying.
oh wow, just saw the trailers and WOW!
do you know when it comes out?
Unfortunately not
I think it already played at some low-key festivals but I can’t find proper release dates, only that it’s sometime this year.
if it’s in the festival circuit, it will take some time to get out. It looks pretty good.
I think so too! I bet it’s really emotional.
yeah… I was watching the trailers and I was already feeling my tears wanting to come out…