"Why We Broke Up" by Daniel Handler (Illustrations by Maira Kalman)

**Spoilers!**


Why We Broke Up, by Daniel Handler is the story of young love, and probably more importantly, young heartbreak.

The story follows 'artsy' Min, and jock-ish Ed Slaterton as they go out.

...

That's one of the reasons I didn't exactly like this book.

I mean, the book itself was very well written, and I loved a lot of the beautiful moments in the book. Some of Min's lines from her letters, or her narrations I suppose, were seemingly simple, but entirely gorgeous. Many of these included lines at the ends of portions of the letters, which gave the overall reasons why Min and Ed broke up. I loved the simple-ness of the illustrations as well, because though very well painted/drawn, they were simple pictures of only one or two items. But what they meant in the story and to the characters were the important.

A couple things I didn't like about the story was Min and Ed's relationship, or at least how it began. I think Min, so focused on not being, but still being artsy, and so openly knowing of her and Ed's differences, should have not fallen for Ed as hard as she did. I do understand, that these are teenagers. Us teens to stupid, and crazy things, but still, most people would realize, "Oh, this is a jock who I really have nothing in common with, I mean, he's hot, but really?" Min seemed to dive into this relationship knowing almost nothing about Ed, and then was surprised after only a month of dating, and barely knowing him, and almost always seemingly internally dissatisfied with the relationship, that he had cheated on her.

The relationship itself only really lasted a month too. Would anyone really get that attached to a person they only know as a popular figure in their school in a month?

In response to my comment on top, about how I didn't like the subject of the book, I feel like the book had no deeper meaning, and just kind of left the story there, almost just a pretty picture.

I understand this is a story of young, fast paced, head over heels love, but as a teenager in modern society, I can't imagine people getting this 'in love' (well, not really, but kind of, but not really, you know?) in a month!

I still very much enjoyed this book, however, and it creates a fairly beautiful image of a relationship and people walking into such relationships without really knowing what they're doing.