The Catastrophic History of You and Me by Jess Rothenberg
- Pub. Date:February 2012
- Publisher: Penguin Group
- Pages: 400
http://www.jessrothenberg.com
"Just before her 16th birthday, Brie Eagan literally dies of a broken heart after her boyfriend tells her he does not love her. She then must go through the five stages of grief, while watching her friends and family try to cope with her death, before her faith in love is restored and she can move on to the afterlife."
First sentence:There's always that one guy who gets a hold on you.
Review: The story itself is not what I thought it would be, I had the notion that it was going to be a quick light read when in reality it was a very sad and at times almost depressing read mixed in with humor, except I didn't find myself laughing at the things that were supposed to be funny. The one thing that annoyed me the most was all the cheese references to her name... it gets old after the third time.
I did like Brie's love for the 80's music at first I thought wow that is a rarity for a teenager of today's generation to love music from that decade but at the same time it's pretty cool and it made more sense after learning there is a perfectly good reason why she loves it so much. I wish I got to know more of Patrick but I didn't learn much about him until the last few chapters. And even though I found him slightly annoying for most of the book it's those last few chapters that helped me actually grow to like him.
The part of the story which I really enjoyed reading about was Brie's family and friends and how they were dealing with her death. There was a lot of heartbreak, misunderstandings and even betrayal.
Overall I'm still not sure how I feel about this book, there were moments when I thoroughly enjoyed it and a few times I caught myself skimming a paragraph here and there.
