Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

Sometimes you encounter books that defy the labels they’ve been placed under. Considering the topic of this book, the author did a wonderful job of expressing a point of view that’s utterly realistic and brutally honest. This book is about a boy whose mother forces him to spend time with a girl dying of leukemia. Spoiler alert: No they don’t end up falling in love and no, the girl isn’t saved by some nearly-impossible miracle. Unlike other books with cancer patients *cough* The Fault in Our Stars *cough* this book did not make me weep but it did make me shed one tear. Four actually. There wasn’t a happily-ever-after ending, and everything about the book from start to finish was realistic, which is very unlike a lot of YA fiction books. It was harsh, crude, down-to-earth, and without embellishment. This book will smack you in the face with a dose of reality and will remind you that in reality, miracles don’t always happen and that superman doesn’t always save the girl. Heck, he may not even be in love with her to begin with.

Faatimah Solomon