Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler - Book Review

Title ~ Why We Broke Up
Series ~ Single Title
Author ~ Daniel Handler
Illustrator ~ Maira Kalman
Release Date ~ December 27, 2011
Publisher ~ Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Source ~ Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

I'm telling you why we broke up, Ed. I'm writing it in this letter, the whole truth of why it happened.

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.

When I read the summary for this book, I was all over it. A box filled with the remains of a relationship that had ended badly and a letter from Min telling Ed exactly why things went wrong. My attention had been grabbed!

I went into reading this book a little differently than most books because, well, I obviously already knew that Min and Ed were going to break up. In fact, the book starts with Min going to dump the box of things at Ed’s house. From there, Min’s letter gives the blow by blow of their relationship from start to finish. I loved this setup because I was constantly watching for clues to the eventual split. And clues there were!

It's when we get to the actual characters that I had some trouble.

Min’s a little quirky. She is obsessed with old movies and is forever comparing everything to them. Min would give little explanations of why she was making each comparison, but sometimes I just felt lost. I was also turned off by Min’s swearing. I think the book would have been better without it. While I felt badly for Min, I didn’t have as strong of a connection as I would have liked.

Then there’s Ed. He is that young adult guy who goes from being a jerk, to being nice, to being a jerk, to being thoughtful, to being a jerk, to being sweet, to being a jerk. Ahhhhh! Just when there seemed to be hope for Ed, he would do something else annoying.  As much as Ed’s behavior flips and flops back and forth, it is all part of the story of Min and Ed. Love it or hate it, this is all part of the WHY.

My favorite thing about this book? The clever illustrations. There is an illustration for each of the items in the fated box. With no other distractions on the page, each illustration is simply that item, drawn and colored in a cartoonish way. LOVED! The pages themselves are this fabulously thick shiny paper and the book is seriously heavy because of it.