The Fault in Our Hearts

The Fault in Our Stars
By: John Green
Reported by: Julianna Helms

Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 12, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumors in her lungs... for now.

Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too. Post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumors tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault.

Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind. 

-Summary from Goodreads 

Barnes&Noble||Amazon||The Book Depository

I am one of those few who accidentally received this book early. 12/23/2011, to be exact.

Being the curious person I am, I read it. I finished this book at 3:48AM on Christmas Eve.

I did not cry.

I should have cried.

And so I wondered why I didn't cry, when such tragedy could ever invade into my mind. I wondered, and then I realized... it was because of a premonition.

I knew how the book was going to end. I did not invest in the characters, because I knew how the book was going to end, and so I did not cry, not because I didn't care, but because I didn't allow myself to care enough. 

I didn't cry, because I was afraid.

You should know this, so that you understand what point of view I am constructing this review from. In fact, if you were expecting a complete fangirling session, you probably should not continue.


Here's the thing: I. Love. John. Green. He creates the most amazing, multi-dimensional characters that shatter the boundaries of a simple paper page. He is this incredibly intelligent man who writes incredibly intelligent things that makes you really think and wonder. And he has the ability to break hearts and mend them back together, in the most crooked way possible, so every time you remember, you only remember your crooked heart and crooked love. (Looking for Alaska reference, yeah?)


I knew all of that, so I was too afraid to let myself try and face the truth. I hid away from it and acknowledged it and then completely ignored it. So I didn't cry, even though I probably should've, and I wonder what that says about me.


My point is this: Do not be afraid when charging into this book. It is a story of finding love in the nooks and shadows of places long neglected, of discovering that happiness really does exist, and knowing that life must recede into oblivion one way or another. You cannot be afraid when reading this book, because otherwise it will ruin your reading experience--and no matter how many times you re-read it, it will not ever suffice again.


John Green is one of those authors who bring out everything in me and forces me to fight. He will not let you be lazy and ignorant. He will shed blinding light on anything and everything, and you must listen. Not because he is supremely powerful or that you are hideously weak, but because it is through these crucibles of sudden eureka and realization that you can really change your viewpoint on the world, and what it truly means to be one of the species that will not survive forever.


Fight. Believe. Do not be afraid. Fear is not a fault--but it is a level of necessity that you cannot bypass once you are imprisoned in it. 


There are faults in everything; especially our hearts.

An Abundance of Nerdfighteria

An Abundance of Katherines 
By: John Green

When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton’s type is girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact.

On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl.

Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to surprising and heart-changing conclusions in this ingeniously layered comic novel about reinventing oneself by Printz medalist John Green, acclaimed author of Looking for Alaska.

-Summary from Goodreads

I have a confession to make: this book slayed me. I am Colin, you guys. It killed my heart to read about a character who I can relate to so, so much.

No, I'm not a prodigy.

I'm just... well, known as really, really smart. I don't think I am--just that other people say so.

Why am I telling you this? Because this book will mean so much more to me than it will mean to someone else. It was tongue-in-cheek funny, dorkily beautiful, thrillingly emphatic.

It was me.

I'm not going to go on and on about how I am Colin or that I think I'm a friction* prodigy (which I'm not) and whatnot. I just want you all to know that I may be a bit biased. But a good kind of biased. In fact, I plunged into this book terrified, because I didn't know if it could possibly live up to the achingly heart-breaking Looking for Alaska. But I loved it even more than Alaska, if you can believe it. The nerdiness of this book made me so, so happy. The characters were fantastically developed; so real, I think I talk to them in my head now. And the plot, while not unpredictable, was intricately complex and heartwarming.

This is a book about math for those who hate math. A book about prodigies for those who envy prodigies. A book about life for those who despise life.

A book for you, my dear reader, to read, especially if you resent reading.

*I say friction instead of freakin', in case you were wondering what it means.
P.S. DFTBA!

Looking for Alaska

Looking for Alaska
By: John Green
Reported by: Juli Helms

Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet Francois Rabelais called the "Great Perhaps." Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young. Clever, funny, screwed-up, and dead sexy, Alaska will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.

Looking for Alaska brilliantly chronicles the indelible impact one life can have on another. A stunning debut, it marks John Green's arrival as an important new voice in contemporary fiction.
  
-Summary from Goodreads

This book destroyed me.


Every single tear I could possibly have spilled out and I swear I fell asleep crying more and more. Looking for Alaska is an emotional ride that will shake everything you feel out of you and leave you no, not empty, but drained, and then you'd just want to cry more because everything that happened just couldn't possibly have happened and they did and you're just like, no, this is all a joke.


I loved this book and then I hated it. Not because of the writing or the characters, for in that aspect this book is a masterpiece.


It was, in fact, a major event that happens that divides the book into Before and After that had me wanting to rip the book to shreds, because I just couldn't stand it, you know? 


I'm trying to talk about how amazing this book is. Hopefully that is conveyed. But the thing with Looking for Alaska is not how realistically John Green portrayed teens or how the book is simply fascinating, but rather that the messages in this book will leave you horrified, touched, amazed, destroyed. 


I'm going to read other John Green books--truth to be told, I just can't not read them, because maybe there's a part of me that's hoping what happened didn't happen, that John will tell us all it was just a joke in another book.


But the other reason is that this book made me a reader again. I didn't scold or care about the writing technique, inflicting conflicts play-out, etc., which I now tend to do with books and analyze them. No. This book flipped the clock around like what The Hunger Games did to me, and that was enough. I want to be able to read without stressing over punctuation. 


I don't know if this book should be starred. I want it to be, but it destroyed me, so on that account I can't. Maybe one day when I re-read it I will analyze it again, and give it a star. Or maybe it will destroy me again and again and again.


I don't know. But I do know that I am going to get out of this labyrinth of suffering one way or another, and only then can I love this crooked book with my crooked heart.