Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Greg struggles to find an opening line for his phone call with Rachel. He moves through several hypothetical scenarios, all in which he makes a fool of himself and Rachel is none the cheerier. When Greg finally makes the phone call, he encounters Rachel’s mom, Denise Kushner, who finds him as funny as her daughter once did. Greg attains Rachel’s phone number and calls her directly. A short, clumsy conversation ensues, ending with Rachel declining Greg’s invitation to hang out. Even though Greg expected exactly this result, he is still bothered by the outcome, and blames his mother for interfering with the social life he wants so badly: one “without friends, enemies, or awkwardness” (47).

Greg briefly summarizes his dad, Dr. Victor Gaines, and his mom, Marla Gaines, along with his two sisters, Gretchen and Grace Gaines, their cat, Cat Stevens, and his paternal grandmother, Gamma-Gamma Gaines, who “lives in Boston and comes to visit occasionally” (51). Greg’s dad is a Carnegie Mellon University professor of ethics, who buys specialty meats and talks to the cat. Greg’s mom is a “very loving woman” who runs a Jewish nonprofit and has very clear boundaries as to what she believes is right and what is wrong and has no qualms about enforcing what is right onto others in the family, specifically Greg (49).