My Never Ending List

This was a different sort of book for me as I felt the tempo of the book kept pushing me forward, making me feel hyper and anxious as I followed the mind of Greg. I didn’t exactly like this feeling as I read the book, I was hoping he’d calm down a bit somewhere and I could enjoy this book.  His ideas and thoughts were all over the place, yet I continued on because here I was reading about a dying girl and I wanted to know exactly what happened to her. I hoped that by the time I got to the part where things got critical, I’d calmed down a bit because it was death and I shouldn’t be all jacked up.   It was Greg’s whole attitude that had me in overdrive as I read. His detachment from anyone except Earl had me questioning what his whole purpose was. He floated around school not belonging to any one specific group yet he thought he was friends with everyone. He thinks that by not belonging, you have access to everyone, that the whole world is yours. I myself, think it sounds lonely. When Greg’s mom finds out that an old girlfriend of his has leukemia, she thinks that Greg should spend more time with her. So much for Greg’s detachment concept. So quiet Greg has now becomes this obnoxious guy who tries to humor Rachel to keep her spirits high. Greg tries so hard and it’s almost like this becomes his goal in life as everything else in his life fades away. Earl, Greg’s best friend enters the picture and the three of them have some great times together but time is slipping away. There are really great lessons in this book and some individuals are not listening because they only see the future and are not seeing the beauty right before them. I have to say that I enjoyed Earl. He was crazy and the words that came out of his lips were insane and demented but he was real. His quirkiness and his thoughts were jumbled but he really understood what mattered. He savored what was eminent. He wasn’t trying to create a big circus, he wasn’t trying to shine, nor trying to entertain, but he was living and trying to survive. The story was excellent but the writing and the satire got a bit old for me after a while. Greg’s pumped up style of always trying to be up, to be funny, to be on top, to be the man…. made me feel that he was hiding something, it just made me tired.