Cee Brensan: Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler

Bookish Mardi: A Book Review of Why We Broke Up
by Daniel Handler

"The thing with your heart's desire is that your heart doesn't even know what it is until it turns up."
- Daniel Handler

Hello there beautiful creature(s)! For you guys to really feel an entire roller coaster ride of my book reviews, I'll be including the book's full details starting today for there is not much joy the blogger can feel than making you guys happy and satisfied. Here it goes, enjoy!

Book: Why We Broke Up

Author: Daniel Handler

Art: Maira Kalman

Publisher: Little, Brown

Publication Date:

December 27, 2011

Pages: 357

Format: Hardbound

Source: Bought

Links: Little, Brown and Goodreads

Cee's Musings

I am a person who is quite into social networking sites which made my students and friends call me Facebook addict, Instagram maniac and Pinterest junkie. Among these sites and many others, what always pique my interest while I'm browsing are ,almost always, books.

So along my random viewing, I came across a book that looks like a magazine to me that contains pictures of cute little things given by the boyfriend to the girl of which made me love the book right away for I, too, hide those keepsakes from my man. And isn't the title of the book "Why We Broke Up" good enough to catch someone's attention?

Recalling my late high school years, I remembered this very famous book series regarding misfortunes of children. The Series of Unfortunate Events was its title written by the same author of this book, Daniel Handler, under the pen name of Lemony Snicket. Though I haven't read a single book of such series, I so much appreciated its movie, and with what the film had offered me, I couldn't think any less of the book. And so I grabbed one after reading its synopsis and seeing its cute images. ^_^

Here is the very first relevant picture (a few will be shown later) in the book, a box containing the lost relationship's treasures of Min and Ed.

"You either have the feeling or you don't. Hawk Davies." - Min

The book introduces us the story with Min sending a box to Ed (her boyfriend) containing the items Min accumulated over the course of their whirlwind romance. The box also contains Min's letter to Ed. Her voice, as she wrote the letter and documents, shows all the love, pain, feeling, emotions, beauty and the ugliness of a relationship.

What make the story more interesting and more attention catcher are the illustrations quirkily made, which I believe are very commendable of Maira Kalman. Here are a few of them:

The narrative is definitely long and strong with witty conversation and characterization close to perfection but what really motivated me to not cease reading are (a) the book's structure, where there are well-done run-on sentences that can go on over a page, (b) the short, punchy and funny streams of curses, (c) the illustrations which introduce every chapters, and (d) the same phrase "and this is why we broke up" which signals the end of the chapter.

What makes this book distinct from other YA Books is that while the rest showcases young adults facing juvenile situations as if they are adult, Min and Ed face adult situations/problems like teenager. Ironic isn't it?

In their world where they were together for weeks seem to equal a decade of time, Min and Ed both beat the odds when getting together. Their struggles have more to do with the mutual exclusivity of their interests and future goals of their clashing peer groups. This then gives a heart-racing and heart-breaking trip through the details, discontinuities, and ultimate demise of their relationship having Min as your personal tour guide.

What I like the most about this book is how Min breaks their relationship into episodic stories each connected to save memento from their time together. As I made mention, I find it too relatable for I also save those memorabilia and sweet nothings in my "all out, you-and-me-agains-the-world'' kind of love and put them in a box of which I call M-Box (Memory Box). Here are a few images in my M-Box you might find corny, silly and similar with Min's:

. . .my seven-year old self-made box ^_^

. . . bought some drinks with the same cap some time in Dec. 2011 ^__^

. . . when he helped me made my visual aids around August 2010, he randomly wrote this and just texted me when he already went home if I happened to see what he made for me. Small thing it was, but I still kept it until today. :)

. . .tag of the shirt I bought for him and the of the pair of shoes he got for me when we made our silly exchange gifts. (We gave the tags first pretending those were the gifts before giving our real gifts. I still ended up stealing his tag for keepsake purposes. hihihi )

. . . first pasalubong he gave me from his Papa sometime in 2008

Although Min and I are similar when it comes to saving these remnants of love, the very big difference between us is while those give us the idea us to why Min and Ed broke up, mine gives you the idea of those many reasons that keep us together. ^_^

Other than the keepsakes that made it so relatable to me, which I know for certain it isn't me alone who does keeping those items, what gives me the reason to smile after reading the books was the realization that sometimes we really need to figure who we are as a person and sometimes who we are involves other persons and some experiences. And when these people, may it be your friends, enemies, workmates, loved ones, parents or anyone, leave you they change you either to make you weaker or stronger. However, the very important thing there is, is you never cease living. Instead you move forward to become a better person.

Over all, the book is great. If you might want to read it, you better start now. ^_^

Remarkable Lines from the Book