Why We Broke Up

By: Daniel Handler, Maira Kalman

Narrated by: Khristine Hvam

I'm telling you why we broke up, Ed. I'm writing it in this letter, the whole truth of why it happened.

Min Green and Ed Slaterton are breaking up, so Min is writing Ed a letter and giving him a box. Inside the box is why they broke up. Two bottle caps, a movie ticket, a folded note, a box of matches, a protractor, books, a toy truck, a pair of ugly earrings, a comb from a motel room, and every other item collected over the course of a giddy, intimate, heartbreaking relationship. Item after item is illustrated and accounted for, and then the box, like a girlfriend, will be dumped.

Sound Effects Rock!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes. The addition of the sound effects was fantastic.

What does Khristine Hvam bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

She read the part of a teenaged girl who's recounting a bad break up very well. I also like the voice she used for Ed.

I never thought I would miss high school

This story is in no way even remotely close to my own experience in high school, but Handler has managed to evoke the way things felt and the way kids interact. He has managed to remind me that there were actually good things about high school. That there were good things about teenagers. And he's done it without ignoring the rotten things about teenagers and high school. And without resorting to some gimmicky trick like underappreciated geniuses or special needs kids or drug problems or social consciousness raising. He just tells a normal simple very real story, but with really vivid compelling characters. Maybe I shouldn't call it normal and simple. First loves can be so intense and so affecting. And yet it's normal in that everyone has been through it. Handler just does such a terrific job of evoking every single detail. Khristine Hvam does a fantastic job of capturing the nuances of how kids talks; different from my generation, but not so different from how my own kids talked at that age.

Students love it!

The book is homework reading in my class. Mostly girls select it, but even my reluctant readers struggle to put the book down. The only flaw with the audio version is there is no artwork.

A great book, with solid narration

I loved, loved, loved this book. I identified with Min from my teenage years and unpopular group of friends -- although I must say the teens in this book are a bit cooler than I remember anyone being when I was that age. The one thing that's lost in the audio book is Maira Kalman's illustrations of the things in the box. It's worth buying a print copy as well.

Good YA, not great.

I really wanted to love this after reading “and then, and then, what else” which is loved and underlined, but the story was lacking, and the end felt a little limp. I would have loved to dive into a deeper dimension with the characters.