Library haul!
Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman
Date Finished: May 23 2013
Date Published: December 27th 2011
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Pages: 354
Rating: 3 out of 5
Summary(From Goodreads):
Min Green and Ed Slaterton are breaking up, so Min is writing Ed a letter and giving him a box. Inside the box is why they broke up. Two bottle caps, a movie ticket, a folded note, a box of matches, a protractor, books, a toy truck, a pair of ugly earrings, a comb from a motel room, and every other item collected over the course of a giddy, intimate, heartbreaking relationship. Item after item is illustrated and accounted for, and then the box, like a girlfriend, will be dumped.
Review:
- Story-line: I have very mixed feelings about this. I read this book because one of my friends at school was telling me how wonderful it was. Her and I have very similar book tastes so I decided to give it a chance. I was also very nervous about it because another of of my friends, this time on tumblr, HATES this book. So, I went into it with an open mind. The beginning of this book was horribly annoying and I almost stopped reading. Because this book is written as a letter from a girl to her ex-boyfriend, it was absolutely whiny. If one more chapter ended in “That is why we broke up.” I might have just thrown the book at the wall. But, after I got passed the writing style and ignored Min, the main character’s, annoying babbling, I actually became interested in why the couple broke up. It got a little bit better, and I actually started enjoying the story. But in the end, the plot was lacking a lot. It was not my favorite at all.
- Characters: Min, the main character, as I have said before, was horribly annoying. I don’t think it is necessarily her fault. Because the book was written in letter form, all Min could do was write about how she felt. Her writing voice was annoying. Ed, her ex-boyfriend was not my favorite. Knowing that this book was called ‘Why We Broke Up’ I knew that the couple had broken up and I was just waiting for something bad to happen. The characters, were annoying for me.
- Writing: The letter form made the characters lack and it hurt the overall story.
- Originality: The overall thought of the story was original. The characters, in my opinion, were not very original IN WRITING. As people, they were original.
- Extras: I gave this book such a high rating because of the experience. I didn’t like the story of the book very much at all, I did however, like the whole experience that came with the book. The pictures were beautiful and I love how they tied into the story. (Even though the story is not my favorite.)
