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Me and Earl and The Dying Girl; How I Would Cast The Characters

As some of us may know, the book Me and Earl and The Dying Girl has a movie to go along with. As all of us should know, the book is almost always better than the movie, and one of the many reasons for that is terrible casting. A movie that completely ruins the characters is one that no one would pay to see. Take the first Percy Jackson movie for example; one of the main characters (Annabeth) was supposed to have blond hair, it was mentioned continuously throughout the book and was clearly pointed out. In the movie, she was given dark brown hair, which automatically made everyone hate it from just a quick glance at the trailer. Now, as someone who’s actually read Me and Earl and The Dying Girl, after looking at the casting I wasn’t all that impressed. So I decided to cast my own actors and actresses. Here we go.

Greg, played by Joel Courtney: When I think of Greg Gaines, the image that pops into my head is of Joel Courtney. There are many reasons for this, including the fact that Joel has the right hair and eye colour, as well as the right build to play Greg. The thing that mostly makes me think of Joel as Greg is the fact that Joel actually looks like a senior in high school. He doesn’t look too old to be playing a teenager, and in my opinion, the actor for Greg in the movie doesn’t look like a senior.

Here’s my casting for Greg:

Rachel, played by Hailee Steinfeld: The movie displayed Rachel decently, but I think Hailee Steinfeld would do a better job as Rachel. For starters, Rachel is described as strikingly beautiful, and with long hair rather than short (which Hailee has). Later on in the book, Rachel loses her hair due to her cancer, but for the time she has it, it’s clear that she has long hair. Hailee also looks like she could be a senior in high school, whilst the actress who played Rachel in the movie looks way too young for that role.

Here’s my casting for Rachel:

Earl, played by Jaden Smith: Earl was the hardest person to find the right casting for; the actor in the movie was definitely too much of a goody two shoes to be playing Earl, so I thought of young actors who could play the role of a tough character like Earl, and I settled on Jaden Smith. Jaden Smith could definitely pull off Earl’s character because just like Earl, Jaden is known to be somewhat of a ‘from the hood’ kind of character. I think Jaden Smith would make the perfect Earl, no doubt.

Here’s my casting for Earl:

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Me and Earl and The Dying Girl; My First Thoughts On This Book

So far, Me and Earl and The Dying Girl didn’t just meet my expectations but changed them. For some reason, I was expecting something more along the lines of ‘The Fault In Our Stars’, by John Green; a beautifully put together book about how life isn’t perfect, and people die. This book, however, was nothing like The Fault In Our Stars (let's just call it TFIOS, The Fault In Our Stars is a pain to spell out every time). This makes me think if the people that recommended it to ‘those who enjoyed TFIOS’ even read it at all. Me and Earl and The Dying Girl is more of a comedy book thrown in the midst of death. Of course, there are going to be some parts where a tear or two slip down, but not like TFIOS where you’re crying 24/7. This book really shocked me because of the constant fourth wall breaks, and how the author didn’t fail to tell us that this story is in fact just a figment of his imagination and not at all real. I’m enjoying this book so far, and I’m honestly kind of happy that it’s not super tear-jerking; I’m not too crazy about those kinds of books anyways.

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Perspective Writing From The POV of The Painting ‘The Goldfinch’ in ‘The Goldfinch’ by Donna Tartt.

1654. I think that's the year that I was created. I remember the one who did it, too. It was a man, with long dark hair that fell to his shoulders. He had a wonderful spark in his eyes that I could never forget. At the time, I didn’t know how valuable I was; all I knew was that I was unique. All the other paintings in the cases were never as good as me. My life was spent being moved from one place to another, the first as boring as the last. Then, on a plain day just like any other, my whole world was turned upside-down. Like, literally. There was a huge blast that knocked me off my hinges and sent me flying across the room. It must’ve been my luck that I didn’t get torn apart. I lay in that awkward position for what seemed like an eternity, until a small pair of hands picked me up and brought me outside, shielding me from the world, and protecting me like I was a lifeline. Those hands (I learned afterward) belonged to my future owner and savior, Theodore Decker. Ever since then, my life has been more exciting. I was taken from Theodore, then was passed around so many times; I remember being on planes, trains, even a boat, once. Somehow I knew that the people I was with at those times didn’t really love me. Then Theo saved me like he did once before, and although my life is boring again, at least I’m with Theo. At least I’m with someone who loves me.

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A town known as the “town of books”, Hay-on-Wye is located on the Welsh / English border in the United Kingdom and is a bibliophile’s sanctuary.

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Another Little Review on ‘The Goldfinch’.

For this post, I’d like to speak a bit about the main character; Theodore Decker. Theo is a fascinating character and one I like very much because of how he is written about in good detail (as I stated in my last post). There’s another reason, however, why I admired Theo instantly, and it’s because of something he said only a few pages into the book: “I was fascinated by strangers, wanted to know what food they ate and what dishes they ate it from, what movies they watched and what music they listened to, wanted to look under their beds and in their secret drawers and night tables and inside the pockets of their coats. Often I saw interesting-looking people on the street and thought about them restlessly for days, imagining their lives, making up stories about them on the subway or the crosstown bus.” What Theo said here instantly caught my attention, and made me stop for a second and reminisce; the people that walked by me every day were just ‘blurs in the background’ for me, but I was the same for them. I realized that all these people had lives, they were someone’s father or mother or brother or sister or lover (I had known this before, but had never really stopped to think about it this way). Ever since Theo said this, it constantly came back to me whenever I was out; I wouldn’t fantasize about these people like Theo, but definitely think about them now as more than just ‘background people’ in my life. Theo’s small paragraph of thought instantly brought me closer to this book and made me think, which is always the best thing that a good book can do.

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My First Review on Donna Tartt’s, ‘The Goldfinch’.

So far, ‘The Goldfinch’, by Donna Tartt is a truly pleasant piece of literature. At first, I thought the book was going a bit slow, but after a while, I started to appreciate the beauty of how this book looks at everything from a real person’s perspective. The book is written in the first person, so we’re essentially ‘inside’ the characters head, thinking their thoughts with them. Now I don’t know about everyone else, but personally, my thoughts are complex rather than one worded, and since the main character (Theo) has thoughts that are complex and well worded, he’s brought to life on the pages, and can be thought of as a real person, and not just a storybook character. In many books, character thoughts are often limited, and this bothers me a great deal. Another thing about this book is that it had me to tears in the first twenty pages or so, which is saying something because books don’t usually make me cry. I can relate this book to past traumatic events in the world, causing it to be even more emotional because I know these things happen daily. As I am not very far in this book, I have many questions, some of which I think will soon be answered. One of my biggest questions right now is: where is Theo in present time? A bit of a strange question, but one that I’m hoping will be answered. In The Goldfinch, Theo is telling us a story of his past, meaning that he’s not like that in present time. I want to know how old he is now, how he’s doing, what he’s doing, and if he’s telling the story to us (the readers) or someone inside the story itself (his kids, his grandkids, etc.) I’m excited to finish this book, but at the same time, I don’t want it to end! All in all, I’m really enjoying Donna Tartt’s, ‘The Goldfinch’.

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More On ‘Fangirl’

Fangirl is an amazing book, but one thing I was confused about was why Rainbow Rowell mentioned the Harry Potter series in the book. This may sound like a weird question if you haven’t read the book, but let me break it down. In the book, there is a made up series called ‘Simon Snow’, about witches and wizards and magic. This made up series is a lot like Harry Potter, and I think that was the point of it being based off of that. What confused me however was when the the protagonist, Cath, asked Levi if he liked the Harry Potter series. This threw me off because this whole time another series was being talked about, then out of nowhere a question about Harry Potter popped up. I found this weird because I thought the whole point was Rainbow Rowell creating this alternate universe with Simon Snow instead of Harry Potter. I think she should have not mentioned Harry Potter, making things a lot less complex and confusing for a lot of readers.

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‘Fangirl’ by Rainbow Rowell

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell is an amazing coming of age book, which I really loved and am currently enjoying to re-read. This book is one I can relate to, because the main character (Cath) is a fangirl, as am I. I could relate to the fact of her wanting to stay in her dorm and read/write, and I could also understand the posters on her walls, why she had them there, and how much ‘Simon Snow’ (the book series she was obsessed with) meant to her. One thing I couldn’t relate to however was that Cath was a very introverted person who didn’t like to talk to people or go anywhere. I’m more of an extrovert, that’s why I don’t think I could relate to that.