Hayden Hangs With Jesse Andrews

Jesse Andrews charming the audience in the Real Life Happens panel.

 ~post by Hayden

“My first impression of Jesse Andrews was open. He seemed to be a very sincere person from the 20 minutes I talked to him, and I enjoyed every minute of it. He moves like a crab but talks like a jester, I guess that’s the best description. I can’t wait to read what comes out of that interesting mind next.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a story about cancer. Well, technically it’s about a girl dying from cancer, but it’s funny. That just sounds awful and completely disrespectful I know, but it is the funny parts that really allow you to understand the characters in the story. The main character is a confrontation-phobic high school senior. His best friend is Earl, an overly angry, short, and destructive senior. Together they make movies. Not good movies, awful, horrible, should-be-burned-on-site-once-seen movies. Once they meet “The Dying Girl” they spend their senior year enjoying their own attempts to make her last year enjoyable. 

I began my interview with asking,”why did you write this book?” Throughout the entire book Greg, the main character, keeps stating that this story has no moral or point it just exists. Jesse answered that the story is about people drawing their own conclusions on life and death and therefore the story’s moral is similar in that manner. It is whatever you believe it is. As I continued the interview we spoke about many aspects of the book. From, is Greg that actual main character? To, are Greg and Earl almost split personalities of each other? All the answer to all of them were based really just on how someone views relationships. In my view Jesse’s book was amazing and he is a wonderful person to talk to.”