THE CATASTROPHIC HISTORY OF YOU AND ME by Jess Rothenberg

The Catastrophic History of You and Me is a somewhat lackluster romance set in the afterlife. Sixteen-year-old Brie dies of a broken heart, literally, and is sentenced to a sort of afterlife transit station that takes the appearance of a diner. There, she meets Patrick, who died of mysterious causes back in the 80s and who takes it upon himself to show her around and help her resolve her unresolved issues with Life so she can pass on. She spies on her family and sees that they're taking her death extremely hard, she spies on her friends and comes to all the wrong conclusions, and also there's evil soulless people wandering around trying to ruin her afterlife.

The protagonist was really annoying. Brie is very immature at the start of the book, and she has a steep learning curve, which was cool, but still, wow, just really selfish and irritating most of the time. She goes through the five stages of grief in regards to her own death, and at first is determined to rejoin life as she knew it. This leads her to spying on her old life and the people in it, since she can't actually interact with them. She has to figure out why her boyfriend broke up with her (accidentally killing her, and this just seemed so silly, anyway), why her parents are having such issues, and whether her best friend horribly betrayed her or not. The way she deals with all of these revelations was very engaging. Everyone is grieving, including Brie, who has lost everything she's ever known, and they all deal with it differently. Watching Brie grow and hang on to her old relationships while accepting her own demise was my favorite part of the book.

The Big Danger and Climax at the end seemed really contrived. It was really strange and fantastical, and jarred with the complete normality of the rest. Patrick's history was also very strange revelation. Like, he did WHAT? and then SHE did what? And she lost her memory because WHY? And then there's all these deals to make sure everyone gets to keep their respective souls and I DON'T EVEN KNOW.

I guess this book just really wasn't my cup of tea. I didn't ever quite connect with Brie or Patrick (I was more interested in the supporting cast, to be honest) and the "world" of the afterlife never did make much sense.

I gave this book three out of five stars.