Why We Broke Up, by Daniel Handler is most certainly not a book for everyone. Although this fictional novel based on a teenage relationship is somewhat accurate, it is extremely over exaggerated and implausible. Personally, books with a high reflection of reality or books with some sort of an escape from realism are the books that I tend to enjoy. This book had neither of the qualities I look for. The items that Min kept to return to Ed at the end of the book are pointless items (bottle caps, rubber bands) that no one in their right mind would keep unless they were somewhat delusional. In addition, the feelings Min shows in her witty monologues as well as in her conversations with the other characters would not make sense because she only dated him for a little over a month (October 5th to November 12th). As well as being a very implausible book it does not even end “happily ever after.” The book simply ends when she drops the crate of meaningless items in front of his door. The only thing that kept me reading were Maira Kalman’s brilliant illustrations, perfectly portraying Min’s descriptions of the items and her feelings towards them. Although the book was neither intriguing nor entertaining in my opinion Handler’s representation of their “romance” of the two falling madly in love in a weeks’ time is beautifully written. He is able to capture their feelings for each other and their differences because of their extremely differing social cliques which is part of the reason I continued to read the rest of the novel. However, at times my liking for her witty dialogues seemed to fade. I didn’t like Min’s stream of consciousness narration and I really didn’t enjoy the way in which Handler interrupted the dialogue with “that’s what she said” or “that’s what he said.” Min’s witty banter became old and annoying at times as well as the ways in which she tried to give meaning to the items in her box. The book becomes very repetitive and the reader is easily able to guess what will come next; a picture and then the story behind why she is giving it back to him. The book didn’t leave you any room to think for yourself or to make any inferences about what could possibly happen next. Even though the story only takes place in the time span of a little over a month, Handler does a good job of trying to connect with people who have ever had an ex; which in reality is a whole lot of us.