The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

In honor of my last blog post, I have officially decided to cover what is currently my favorite book. I have taken a break from writing about this book, because I've written so many essays about it for college and school and pretty much everything else you could think of that I had gotten somewhat bored of talking about it. The Fault in Our Stars, though, is an incredible book; one that will likely be on my list of favorites for years to come. John Green, who I have written about before, has an insightful way of delving into the mysterious mind of the young adult, in a way that makes his characters more relatable than almost any other book I've read. I also really love how he does not write common love stories; instead, he throws his characters into extremely odd circumstances, and allows the reader to enjoy the adventure as they slowly overcome the odds that are against them.

The Fault in Our Stars is about a teenage girl named Hazel Grace, who has cancer. Her parents force her to go to a cancer support group, where she then meets Augustus Waters. Augustus had cancer, but was cured of it after having his leg removed. He is best friends with Isaac, who attends the support group regularly, and who is about to become blind after having both of his eyes removed due to cancer.  Gus and Hazel click almost immediately, and soon become close. They slowly fall in love as Hazel fights her illness, and the two go through many different ups and downs regarding both the disease, and life in general.

This book does a great job of tackling such existential questions as "why are we here?" and "is leaving your mark the most important thing?" while not sounding too pretentious or preachy. Deep topics are seamlessly integrated with more light-hearted topics, as well as an interesting story line that really draws you in. When this book arrived on my doorstep, I went to my room and read it in one night. I literally could not put it down, which even led to me accidentally skipping dinner because I completely forgot about the time. It really is an incredible book, and I highly recommend it.

“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” - John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

Story People by Brian Andreas

This past year or so, I developed a passion for poetry. Now, I'm not talking about that dense, obscure poetry that you read in English class. I was never a huge fan of that. I just never understood why it was necessary to hide the meaning of the piece in super-hard-to-decipher metaphors and deep figurative language. I mean, sure, it sounds pretty cool, but it always seemed a little pretentious to me I suppose. This type of poetry seems to be something that people feel is important to study, but not something that they are willing to read for fun. Because of this, I think that there is some sort of stigma against poetry, because most people believe that it has to be so complex that it hurts your brain.

In reality though, there are many poets who are, in my opinion, equally as brilliant without being equally as complex. My love of poetry was first sparked by a man named Charles Bukowski, who was pretty cynical and grumpy but who wrote about life in a way that made me excited to live. His work was relatively straightforward, but he seemed to notice and acknowledge things that most people have never even considered. This perspective on life made me fall in love with not only his work, but the medium of poetry as a way of expressing thoughts that you may not be able to explain any other way.

Brian Andreas entered my life shortly after I had discovered Bukowski. He is much more playful than Bukowski, but has an equally simple and readable style. Andreas has a much more uplifting outlook on life and love and friendships than Bukowski, which contrasts him perfectly. Story People really focuses on memories and childhood stories, and the poems and drawings included in the book really have an innocent feel to them.

This is the type of book that almost anyone would enjoy, whether they read poetry or not. I have lent it to two of my friends, who previously had no interest in poetry, and both of them loved it. In fact, one of them kept it for months, and when they finally had to return it, they made copies of half of the pages so that they could keep the poems with them. It's really the type of book that you will want to reread over and over again until you memorize all of the poems. It's that good.


“She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful & life was so short.” - Brian Andeas, Story People.

Looking for Alaska by John Green

I have been a huge fan of John Green over the past few years. In fact, his book The Fault in Our Stars is one of my favorite books of all time. I will probably write about that one in greater detail later on, but I have written a million essays, including one of my college essays, about it and therefore I want to take a little break from that. So instead, I decided to cover my second favorite book by Mr. Green, Looking for Alaska.

Looking for Alaska is the story of Miles Halter, who goes to attend a boarding school, called Culver Creek, in Alabama for high school. I know what you were thinking; but no, this isn't a book about a frantic search to find the location of Alaska. Although, when I typed "Looking for Alaska" into google, a map of Alaska was the first result. Anyways, so Miles is really into biographies and the last words of famous people. He memorizes many of these last words, and particularly enjoys the last words of Francois Rabelais, who said "I go to seek a Great Perhaps." Throughout the book, Miles uses these words as a justification for many of his actions. 

While at Culver Creek, Miles, who is later nicknamed Pudge, meets his two best friends Chip and Takumi. Through Chip, he is introduced to Alaska, a gorgeous but slightly emotionally-unstable girl. The four friends go on numerous adventures and constantly find new ways to get into trouble. Over time, Pudge begins to fall for Alaska, but things are quickly cut short by a tragedy that affects them all. 

John Green has been one of my favorite authors for some time now, and this was the first of his books that I had ever read. It's a relatively quick and easy read, but it definitely keeps you interested and also has a lot of meaning behind it. This book was laced with many of John Green's personal experiences, such as some of the pranks that they plan on their school principle. It seemed like a particularly personal novel for him, which left me feeling like I truly got to know the author over the course of the book. 

This book was extremely enjoyable, and I hope to read it through again soon. John tends to add little details that are easy to miss the first time around, so I am eager to see if I pick up on anything new my second time.

“Thomas Edison's last words were 'It's very beautiful over there'. I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful.” - Looking for Alaska, John Green. 

Every Day by David Levithan

Every Day by David Levithan is nothing short of a unique love story. Authors and producers are constantly trying to think of new obstacles to put in the path of love, but Levithan has created one that is truly different. A, the protagonist in the story, wakes up in a different body every single day. Sometimes he wakes up as a female, and sometimes as a male. A has gotten used to it, and tries to lay low while inhabiting others so as not to cause a great disturbance in their life. He has three main rules: don't interfere, don't get noticed, and try not to get attached to anyone. For the most part, his routine has remained relatively uninterrupted.

However, one day he wakes up in the body of a teenage boy named Justin. Justin has a girlfriend named Rhiannon, who A quickly falls in love with after spending the day with her. How can you be with someone when you wake up in a different body every single day? I suppose you'll have to read it to find out. But really. It's a fantastic book.

I know that I've talked about David Levithan before, but that's simply because I think he is a phenomenal writer. He is incredibly versatile and none of his books are remotely similar. He has a way of capturing human emotion in a way that few people can, and it makes for a very beautiful read. He is also prepared to tackle topics and ideas that most authors are too scared to touch, and I think that perhaps that is one of the main factors that draw me back to his novels, time and time again.This book in particular was interesting because the main character did not really associate themselves with a certain gender, and therefore I think that guys and girls alike would enjoy it. This unbiased, open-minded perspective really added a lot of depth to the book.

“I want love to conquer all. But love can't conquer anything. It can't do anything on it's own.
It relies on us to do the conquering on its behalf.” - David Levithan, Every Day

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Chuck Palahniuk is one of those incredibly creative, strange, and complex writers that is extremely rare to find. His work covers a wide variety of topics, and often satires society in a way that I have previously never read before. Fight Club is no exception. Now, most people have seen the movie, but few actually know that it was a book first. I have both read the book and watched the movie, and I absolutely adore both, but the book puts you in a certain mindset by the end that you just can't achieve from the screen.

Fight Club follows an unnamed man who goes to support groups, pretending to have deadly diseases, in an effort to combat his insomnia. He eventually meets another man named Tyler Durden, who is incredibly mysterious. They soon become close friends, and create an underground fighting club in the basement of bars to help relieve stress. Things escalate quickly and suddenly the unnamed protagonist's life is spinning out of control, and he soon loses track of who he is when he is awake, and who he is when he is asleep.

I don't know about you, but I personally love books that make you rethink and reevaluate yourself. This book mocks our innate materialism, as well as our mundane, meaningless adult lives. In one scene of the book, the protagonist describes his obsession with ordering furniture and decorations from Ikea catalogues, and complains about his efforts to find which dining set "defines him." Having the materialism in our society mocked so blatantly really made me realize how much our lives revolve around getting the newest technology or fad. The majority of us spend our lives working a dead-end job that we hate so that we can afford to continue to buy these meaningless material objects. But why? It's as if we are dead long before we take our last breath. This is the idea that is examined in Fight Club, in extreme sarcastic detail.

Not only is this book thought provoking, but it also keeps you on the edge of your seat. I can guarantee that you will not anticipate the ending, and it will probably leave you pretty confused. I had to reread the ending two or three times in an effort to convince myself that it really happened. After finishing the book, I highly recommend the movie. It does a fantastic job of capturing the essence of the book without following it word for word. I also think that the ending of the movie is perhaps even better than the book ending.

This is an incredibly well written book, and it has the ability to make you question the way that you are spending your life. To me, that is the ultimate sign of a good book; it makes you think.

"You buy furniture.  You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life.  Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled.  Then the right set of dishes.  Then the perfect bed.  The drapes.  The rug.  Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.  - Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk. 

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

There seems to have been an influx of references to Perks of Being a Wallflower recently by my classmates, so I figured this would be a good time to review it. I am slightly overwhelmed and discouraged by the amount of people who seemed to have loved the movie, but had absolutely no idea that it was a book long before the movie was ever created. I absolutely adore this book, but if I hear one more person say "We accept the love we think we deserve" in casual conversation without a single reference to the book or movie, I think I might just up and quit school and become a recluse.

Anyway, the book is about a boy named Charlie who writes about his life in letters sent to an anonymous person. Charlie is not his real name, but simply the name he gives as to hide his identity. The book covers an immense range of topics, including suicide, drugs, love, secrets, and betrayal, so it appeals to a wide range of interests. Charlie begins the letters by describing his nervousness and apprehension about starting high school, especially after his best friend committed suicide only a few months before. He soon befriends two seniors named Sam and Patrick, who are step-siblings, and his fear and anxiety begin to subside as he makes new friends and experiences new things.

This book is arranged in a first person letter format, which really makes you feel like you know Charlie personally by the end of the book. I especially enjoyed the way that the author developed Charlie's character throughout the novel, making his personal transition from nervous and awkward to confident and comfortable even more evident and real. I found that even though I have not experienced many of the same things as Charlie, I still found little snippets of thoughts and realizations that were incredibly relatable and meaningful to my own life. I think that this is the beauty of books; they allow us to see a little bit of ourselves in other people, which in turn makes us feel less alone in our own thoughts.

Overall I would definitely recommend this book. It is more than a classic coming-of-age teenage story; although the book is told from the perspective of a teenager, the challenges he faces are ones that readers of all ages could relate to and learn from. It'll make you laugh, it'll make you think,  and on multiple occasions it might even make you reach for the tissue box in a blur of tears. What more can you ask for in a book? It gets my stamp of approval. I recommend giving it a read to see if it deserves yours as well.

“There's nothing like deep breaths after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reasons.” - Stephen Chbosky, Perks of Being a Wallflower.

The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan

Every other book that is published these days has some kind of overly dramatic, picturesque love story. We all know what I'm talking about. I mean, we have the creepy, overly obsessive relationship in Twilight, in which it is deemed perfectly normal to sneak into someone's room and watch them while they sleep. Then there's 50 Shades of Grey, a rated X knock off of Twilight with equally obsessive characters. Even the Hunger Games, which focuses on a dystopian society, somehow weaves in a dramatic love triangle to keep all of the 13 year old's attention. As a society, we almost always seem to portray this idealized version of love in our books, movies and television shows. The guy comes in, sweeps the girl off her feet, and often they live happily ever after. I blame movies like Cinderella and Snow White for giving me false expectations for my adult years; I mean, I'm 17 and I have yet to live with seven tiny men. However, sometimes I come across a book that looks at love in such a dramatically different way that I can't help but rethink everything I have been taught about the subject. David Levithan has a beautiful way of looking at the realistic, painful sides of love, as well as the light-hearted, beautiful moments. 

The Lover's Dictionary does just this. This book is not written in a conventional way; each page begins with a different word, followed by the type of speech. This word is then followed by a memory of the tumultuous relationship described in the story. Often these memories are not in order of how they happened, and therefore the job of discovering the meaning behind the story is placed in the hands of the reader. 

This type of style is perfect for the story that he tried to convey. The little glimpses of the end of the relationship, cushioned by happy memories, makes for a beautiful read. Without giving too much away, the story is essentially a compilation of the thoughts and memories of the man in the relationship, who remains unnamed. He catalogues the ups and downs of his relationship with the woman he loves, and the reader soon pieces together that their relationship is far from perfect; we get glimpses of her alcohol problems, and her infidelity. One of the most interesting things about this book is that even during the happiest times, when he seems overwhelmingly in love with his girlfriend, we also see that they relationship has its imperfections. For instance, he constantly brings up the fact that she never puts the cap back on the toothpaste, and often complains of the way she treats him  when she drinks too much. Because Levithan drops us hints in the first few pages of the book that the relationship will end badly, the reader is able to pick up on these small grievances throughout the book, more so than if he had told the story in order. 

I really loved this book. I read it in one sitting, and have since reread it three or four times. As an avid reader, I can honestly say that I have read a ton of books, but this one has quickly become one of my favorites. As a teenage girl growing up in a world of idealized, glamorized love, this book really helped me to understand that love is far from what is shown in the media. It is imperfect, frustrating, beautiful, and sometimes painful, but from what I have seen, it is always worth it. 

“Trying to write about love is ultimately like trying to have a dictionary represent life. No matter how many words there are, there will never be enough.” - David Levithan, The Lover's Dictionary