The Catastrophic History of You and Me is a Young Adult novel by Jess Rothenberg. It has fantasy, suspense, humor and romance. If you’d ask me, Jess Rothenberg wrote a great debut novel.
The story is about fifteen-year-old-girl named Brie. She is living her life with her three best friends, boyfriend, parents, little brother and dog. One night when she is out on a date with her boyfriend Jacob she dies. The last words someone ever said to her were I don't love you. And the person who said it to her was Jacob. Brie literally died of a broken heart. Really, her heart broke in two. Leaving her friends and family behind she starts a 'new' life. A life after life. She finds herself at the dinner she loved going to when she was alive. There're people there, all dead but living. One of them is lost-soul Patrick. He helps her find out how the whole new life after death thing works, what she can and cannot do. With his help, she had to live through five stages of grief before she can really live her new life. It isn't an easy thing to do, and she is starting to like Patrick ore every day. They even seem to know each other from their real 'living' life. So what is up with them? Will they move on? Will everyone they left behind move on? Or will they die from losing Brie?
The cover of this novel looks great, I have to tell you that. And the story had so many twists and turns: great. But for me, it was lacking romance. I was like ‘o, they’re going to be together’ when I was just a few chapters in the story. But nothing really happened. Untill the last chapter. For me, that could have been sooner. It just dragged and dragged on, while I knew they would get together eventually. But the rest, it was great. If I’d live 0.25 stars, it would be a 3.75. But because I only have 3.5 and 4 stars to rate, I give this one 4 🙂
