Sixteen-year-old Min Green writes a letter to Ed Slaterton in which she breaks up with him, documenting their relationship and how items in the accompanying box, from bottle caps to a cookbook, foretell the end.
I have a love hate relationship with this book. I heard it
talked about all over the internet, so when it went on sale, I bought it. I
didn’t know when I started it, and I still don’t know now, why this book got so
much hype. Both Min and Ed are painfully generic characters that feed into
their stereotypes.
I never really ended up caring about either of them, and
that made it difficult to finish this book. It got to the point where I was
half way through it and I figured that I might as well just finish it incase it
gets better at the end.
To me, it never did. I guess there must have been something
about it that kept me reading, but I wouldn’t openly recommend the book to
anyone.
2.5/5 Stars
Memorable Quotes: “I’m telling you why we broke up, Ed. I’m
writing it in this letter, the whole truth of why it happened. And the truth is
that I goddamn loved you so much.”
“You could never truly see the movies in my head and that,
Ed, is why we broke up.”
“It was everything, those nights on the phone, everything we
said until late became later and then later and very late and finally to go to
bed with my ear warm and worn red from holding the phone close close close so
as not to miss a word of what it was, because who cared how tired I was in the
humdrum slave drive of our days without each other. I’d ruin any day, all my
days, for those long nights with you, and I did. But that’s why right there it
was doomed. We couldn’t only have the magic nights buzzing through the wires.
We had to have the days, too, the bright impatient days spoiling everything
with their unavoidable schedules, their mandatory times that don’t overlap,
their loyal friends who don’t get along, the unforgiven travesties torn from
the wall no matter what promises are uttered past midnight.”
