"The Fault in Our Stars"

by John Green, YA, 2012, 318p, rating=2
Source:  library
*SPOILER ALERT*

Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 12, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours 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 tumours 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. (Goodreads)

WARNING  --this review might sound preachy but it's merely what I felt during the read.  Anyway, this started off with a bang for me.  I was thinking, 5 stars definitely 5 stars.  Then that physical connection thing between Hazel and Augustus happened.  I was taken aback!  It bothered me.  It's just not an occurrence to be taken so lightly.  It seemed that subliminally it was saying that it's okay to have fornication (remember, they're teenagers) because you're dying of cancer and under the umbrella of "we're in love" syndrome.  Yes, this was not the main focus of the book but to me it shouldn't have been added.  It was so subtle that it could easily be missed but you've read it and it's saying that it's no big deal.  It is to me.  I want my children to reserve their gift of procreation to the person they have lawfully and legally committed to.  MY OPINION.

That aside, this book tackled the world of dying in varying voices.  Namely, two teenagers (Hazel and Augustus) and a broken literary writer (Van Houten).  Hazel's voice was one of acceptance of death ..que sera, sera; Augustus was one of "I'll be the dashing debonair to make a cancer girl's last moments great since I don't have it as bad as others" attitude (yikes, the twist!); and Van Houten was just an unpleasant man drowning in the excuse of self pity.  Quite a group of characters, eh?  Indeed the mixture was recipe for boredom buster.  But overall, I saw this book to be over my head philosophical.  --Oh, I did like a couple of the sidekicks ..Isaac (Augustus' best friend) and lady Lidewij Vliegenthart (Van Houten's personal assistant).  Those two rocked!!

I'm not soulless.  This book did make me cry but this time around the indiscretion overpowered that emotion to award a great rating.

"Paper Towns"

by John Green, YA, 2008, 305p, rating=4

"Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life - dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge - he follows.  After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues - and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees of the girl he thought he knew." (book's blurb)

I almost dropped reading this book.  Not because it wasn't interesting enough but more due to timing.  Often times I start a book and other books pique my interest and before I know it, I've got 4-5 books I'd love to read at once ... and at least one of those ends up being due to return to the library.  Well, I'm glad I decided to renew this and finally got to it. 

This book reminded me of the 1985 movie, The Breakfast Club.  Though the settings are different, the premise is the same.  They both involved the high school getting to know yourself/others stage.  Both sets of characters found out about each other's true disposition through close interactions.  In the movie, the characters got together by way of Saturday detention, while the characters of Paper Towns bonded due to the search of the eccentric Margo Roth Spiegelman. 

This was a mod podge of a read ... funny, sad, exciting, reckless, momentous, poetic, and so forth.  What one might see of a stereotypical portrayal of high school occurrences.  Although I can't say I can relate to the midnight antics since I was a goody-two-shoes back in high school, I can certainly understand the appeal of being wild.  More importantly the desire to get out of one's skin and be free to be your true essence.  That's what I believe Margo set out to do by running away.  And through the process that her friends took to search for her came the understanding that like the paper towns (fake towns on a map), people had their version of being paper people ...facade.  Margo didn't want to be a paper girl anymore but wanted to be real.  So she had to leave her current life to find it.

I like the trio male friendship of Q, Ben, and Radar.  They were lovely to get to know.  A nice change of pace in characters.  Moreover, I think this would highly appeal to young men readers ... given that the voice was from a young male's point of view. 

A seemingly plain read but the powerful ending geared it to a depth that invites the readers to discover and appreciate ...whatever that may be for you.