Teen Lit

Lili’s pick: The Virgin Suicides

Lanie’s pick: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

There is something about being a teenager that makes one more emotional, uncertain, fatalistic. The intense feelings you’re put through as you navigate late childhood into young adulthood are enough to drive anyone insane, and I commend anyone who makes it out of that adolescent nightmare alive. These two films, while doing so in different ways, prove this to be true. The Virgin Suicides and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, present us with two very idiosyncratic, charming groups of teens, both of which made their first appearance in books. Whether you read these novels as a teenager, or at all, one can easily feel the things they’re feeling—thanks to the magical adaptations that both Sofia Coppola and Alfonso Gomez-Rejon were able to bring to the screen. The Virgin Suicides was just as dreamy, chic, and tragic as I remembered, as it somewhat brought the problematic archetype of suicidal teens into existence. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl brought something totally different, but something equally as dreamy with its unexpected hilarity, beauty, and heartbreak. I was nervous to show my sister The Virgin Suicides, thinking it would be a bummer that would kill the mood, then she showed Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, and I knew it was her who was trying to kill me.