Heartbreak. We’ve all felt it before–whether it was from a boy who didn’t like you back, or from your failed geometry quiz last week–we can all collectively agree that it sucks. It sucks especially for fourteen year old girls. The most cliché way to get over heartbreak is to lie in your bed all day, go to town on an entire container of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream, and watch sad movies. You know the drill. Queue up Steel Magnolias, Call Me By Your Name, and just about any Pixar movie. I want to say that’s not what I did. But who am I kidding? Being a fourteen year old girl, that’s precisely what I did that Sunday afternoon. I scrolled through endless streaming services trying to find a movie that would make me bawl my eyes out and feel every emotion I’d ever hidden away in my body. I decided on the movie, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. I’d heard about it before, and the plot looked promising for a good ol’ cry. Boy is socially awkward. Boy is forced to hang out with a dying girl. Boy and dying girl strike up an everlasting bond. And considering the title of the movie, I had an idea of what happened at the end. The Fault in Our Stars and Five Feet Apart met, eloped in Las Vegas, and nine months later  had Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. I paid my three dollars and ninety-nine cents, and watched this movie without blinking my eyes. The story had me in a chokehold. The main character, Greg Gaines, told us through his eyes how he saw the social hierarchy of his school, and how he had been collectively racking up different personas throughout his four years to fit in with every single group. Earl, Greg’s best friend, and the comic relief of the movie, never failed to make you laugh throughout the dreadful and sad tone of the film. Rachel, aka, the dying girl, drew you in with her charisma and left you knowing so much yet so little about her character, symbolizing how her life ended before she could express who she was. It’s not your regular teen movie. It’s gut-wrenching, heart-punching, and makes you want to smash every breakable object in a fifty mile radius because it isn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that Rachel died. It wasn’t fair that Greg only had so little time with her before her life was over. It made me sob until I couldn’t breathe because that’s how life is. It was bad times. It was good times. It was precious. Because, for Rachel, she didn’t have enough time. I really did think Greg and Rachel were going to fall in love, though. When I was complaining to my mother that they didn’t, she said, “That’s just how it is sometimes.”

      That’s just how it is sometimes. 

      It really was, though. They were friends and nothing more. Maybe the story was more powerful because they were just friends. I mean, not all love was romantic. Sometimes the strongest feelings of love you have are for your best friend, your mother, your sister, your dog. Love can be found anywhere, from anyone. 

      After watching Me and Earl and the Dying Girl for the second time on that Sunday, I discovered that it was actually a book first! All good movies are based on books. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter. Any good movie you’ve ever seen was probably a book first. It’s just how the world works. So, I checked out Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews from my local library, and started reading. And boy. Oh, boy. I felt like I was being betrayed. I was so excited to read this book–it was going to be a masterpiece because the movie was so good right? Well, it wasn’t. It actually kind of sucked. The main character, Greg Gaines, the one that was charming and charismatic in the movie, was a complete a**hole. He complained about Rachel for the entire book, all the way until she died. Sure, he cared about her in the end, but he was selfish and a horrible friend. Earl lacked his witty comebacks, and Rachel’s character wasn’t nearly as developed, she never spoke about herself or her feelings the entire book, and all Greg did was complain about her. It wasn’t funny, and it tried way too hard to be pretentious and deep. It wasn’t like the movie at all. I’m a firm believer that the book is always better than the movie, hence, Where the Crawdads Sing, but in the case of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, I’ll have to make an exception. The film was five stars, but the book shouldn’t even be associated with it. I think the only other time I’ve seen a movie better than a book was Silver Lining’s Playbook. Oh and Forrest Gump. So after one heartbreak, a pint of ice cream, and hundreds of tears shed, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl became one of my favorite movies, yet one of my least favorite books.