Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

“Because here’s the thing: I learned absolutely nothing from Rachel’s leukemia. In fact, I probably became stupider about life because of the whole thing.” 

Greg is adamant from the very beginning to convince his readers that he has gleaned nothing from being friends with a girl who has cancer. We learn that Greg operates from a very specific set of rules, and once he befriends Rachel, those rules no longer apply. For Greg, that means life no longer makes sense.

“So there are a bunch of groups, all jockeying for control, and consequently all of them want to murder each other. And so the problem is that if you’re part of a group, everyone outside of that group wants to murder you.

But here’s the thing. There’s a solution to that problem: Get access to every group.” 

Greg has found a way to battle the atrocities and potential landmines of high school life. Rather than identifying with one group and risking rejection of all other groups, Greg elects to stay neutral, thus allowing himself to float in and out of all groups. This method contributes to his ability to remain invisible for most of his high school career.

“Mom was asking me to resume a friendship that had no honest foundation and ended on screamingly awkward terms. How do you do that? You can’t.” 

Although Greg has much to learn about himself and how to maintain a friendship, here he shows surprising awareness of why a friendship with Rachel would be particularly difficult. His initial relationship with Rachel in Hebrew school was founded on a lie because he was only using Rachel to get to her more attractive best friend. And instead of being direct with Rachel about wanting to end their relationship, Greg comes up with story after story as to why he cannot hang out with her.