*This article discusses spoilers about the book and film so if you have not read/watched them, then I highly suggest you do and check this article once that's finished.*
Last summer I read Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl for the first time. It was the week before I began my first year of college and everything around me was changing around me so quickly that I never found the time to watch the movie even though I enjoyed the book so much.
I enjoyed the book so much that I decided to sit down again this summer and read it again and I made sure that I had the time to watch the movie again this time around.
When the movie first came out, my best friend and I thought about going to see it but the Rotten Tomatoes reviews weren't very good so we decided against it, but this summer I was going to watch the movie even if it was terrible because I had to see how the book was transformed to something I could see. I'm so glad I did.
Greg is the funniest human on the planet. Some may disagree with me on this, but I think that the fact Greg was willing to be a friend to Rachel in her time of need was beautiful. He had no relationship with her and at first he had no desire to start one, but once he had gotten to know Rachel on more of a personal level he decided to stick around. He decided to begin a new friendship even though he knew she was going to die and it was going to tear him up on the inside. He did everything in his power to make sure that her time left was something worth remembering. He didn't want to see her sad so he did everything he could to make her laugh, even if that sometimes meant having a sexual attraction to pillows.
Earl is the best friend that everyone needs. Even though Earl and Greg had a relationship that was basically restricted to film making and eating weird food, just spending time with a person can bring you both closer. There is a scene in both hr book and the film where Earl tries to bring Greg back down to Earth; this is a quality that every great best friend possesses. Earl doesn't care what Greg thinks of him, but he does care that Greg hears what he is saying.
Rachel dies at the end. This is going to sound morbid, but I think this is the most beautiful part of the book and film. This is what makes the book feel real. Life more often than not doesn't have a happy ending and neither does this story. I think that Rachel dying is the perfect way to end this story because you think the whole time "maybe she will make it" because she is just such a lovable character and you really want to see her pull through, but that doesn't always happen.
The bottom line is, if you read this article without reading the book or seeing the film I hope that this article persuaded you to do otherwise.
