Review: Why We Broke Up - Daniel Handler

I picked this up because I saw it making the rounds on Youtube a little while ago and it seemed like an interesting concept. The novel is based off of pictures of things in a break-up box and I thought this seemed really interesting. The art is by Maira Kalman, and since it is not really the style I usually go for, I won’t comment any further on it. As the title suggests this book is about a couple who have broken up and now one person is writing a letter to the other person explaining how each thing in the break-up box is connected to their relationship and their breakup. 

First off, in case you didn’t know, a break-up box is a box of all the things that reminds you of your ex. You collect these things in a box, and based on your feelings around your breakup and your need to purge, you might return the things, throw them out or burn them. 

This book was quite different from what I expected. First of all, I thought the couple were adults, but it turns out they are 16 years old. Second I thought the relationship would have been a long one, lasting several years, since someone felt the need to write a book-length letter about the breakup, but it turns out it only lasted about a month. Being slightly thrown off by this I soldiered on as the book was not really responsible for my mistaken expectations, but even so I must say I didn’t particularly enjoy it. 

Min, the main character who is writing the letter, seems like such a drama queen. I mean, a massive box of things and a letter that apparently took you hours to write for a month-long relationship? And her reactions to events confused me. I never knew where I had her. She would be fine one minute, and then she wasn’t because of some tiny thing. I just think she overreacted to a whole bunch of things. And I never really understood the relationship either. Why would she want to be with Ed in the first place? It just didn’t make sense to me, as they seemed to be from two totally different worlds. And then when they get together in spite of everything, they have a whirlwind romance, sort of, and Min falls in love almost immediately and becomes the lovestruck girlfriend who ditches her friends and interests in order to please her new boyfriend. I HATE when people do that!! And while Ed is sometimes sweet, I would say that 70% of the time he is kind of a jerk, but Min decides to focus on the 30% sweetness, and that just irks me! I’m not saying a guy has to be perfect, but he shouldn’t be a jerk for the majority of time. We never really get why Ed wanted to be with Min either. At least, I don’t. There is some sort of explanation in the end, just before they break up, but that just confused me more. 

I also didn’t really like the writing style. The syntax was really weird sometimes and I would have to go back and really break down a sentence in order to get it. And again, it just seemed a bit overdramatic, when you reached the end and realized exactly how short this relationship was. 

In conclusion, I liked the concept of the story told through items in a breakup box, but the writing style and the characters and the length of the relationship ruined it for me. 

I gave this 2 stars out of 5 on Goodreads.