Hennepin County Library audiobook 5 discs
read by Thomas Mann and RJ Cyler, with five others
genre: YA realistic
I really disliked this. I listened to the whole thing because I kept waiting for it to get better. It didn't. In the guise of writing a college admissions letter, Greg Gaines writes about his life and especially his senior year of high school. He uses a lot of self-deprecating humor, only he really is an incredible jerk.
The language is extremely crude - plenty of F-bombs and extensive use of the Lord's name in vain. The narrator (Greg) is unlikable (as he points out himself) and his friend Earl is definitely a more developed human being (which Greg also points out). It's hard to empathize with someone who is as self-centered and shallow as Greg. I did like Earl as a character, even though he is also quite crude.
One review I saw called it the "poor man's Fault in Our Stars," but the only real comparison is that they're teenagers and one has cancer. That's not enough to make them similar stories. We only get to know Rachel through Greg's eyes and he's mostly focused on himself. The boys' film-making was interesting, but not enough to redeem this story. And it seems a bit too much that they destroyed eight years' worth of movies - the originals upon creation and the DVDs when Rachel died.
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