Novel Nerds *

Book Review: Looking for Alaska by John Green

Genre: Fiction

My Rating: 4*

Amazon’s summary:

A vivid, passionate and intensely moving YA novel from prizewinning author John Green.

“In the dark beside me, she smelled of sweat and sunshine and vanilla and on that thin-mooned night I could see little more than her silhouette, but even in the dark, I could see her eyes – fierce emeralds. And not just beautiful, but hot too.”

BEFORE. Miles Halter’s whole life has been one big non-event until he starts at anything-but-boring Culver Creek Boarding School and meets Alaska Young. Gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, screwed up and utterly fascinating she pulls Miles into her world, launches him into a new life, and steals his heart. But when tragedy strikes, and Miles comes face-to-face with death he discovers the value of living and loving unconditionally.

AFTER: Nothing will ever be the same.

Poignant, funny, heartbreaking and compelling, this novel will stay with you forever.

I’ve heard nothing but praise for John Green so I had to pick this up from the bookshop when I saw it. It was only £1.99 hehehe.  I just love The Works!

Looking for Alaska was a quick read. It’s the story of young love, friendship and tragedy. I really enjoyed the ending. The beginning bit kind of dragged for me. It’s told from the point of view of a teenage boy, Miles, so I found it kind of gross at points and boring. I haven’t read a novel with a guy’s point of view telling the entire story in too long! But anyway, as it got towards the end I really began enjoying the book. What the characters go through does pull at your heart strings but I loved the way it ended. When I was reading this, I really felt like I took away some kind of message: we can’t and won’t always have the answers. Life isn’t planned and always predictable. Amazing and horrible things happen but often we just can’t figure out why. And sometimes that’s okay. But good or bad, life does go on;  just not in the same way.

Curious as to how Green’s The Fault in our Stars is and Paper Towns. Definitely adding to my to-read list! I liked Looking for Alaska for it helping me to remember we can’t control everything; know the answers to everything or get everything we want. And that’s okay. It might not seem like it sometimes but eventually, the smoke will clear. I think John Green is a great writer!

Definitely read this if you’re looking for a book that will question the workings of life more.

My little sister is now reading Looking For Alaska

Ok so I just posted that my sister is reading The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. Well, she just finished it and I gave her Looking for Alaska to read. I’m so excited I got her reading and I get to recommend her my favourite books.

- Yasmina

My little sister is reading The Fault In Our Stars!!!!

I got my little sister to read The Fault In Our Stars by John Green and she adores Augustus :D Now her heart is breaking because she’s near the end of the book.

I feel like I accomplished something by getting her to read it. YAY

heidiloveslife asked: How do you feel about the movie rights for The Fault in Our Stars being optioned?

fishingboatproceeds:

Unambiguously happy. (By the way, the movie rights to The Fault in Our Stars were optioned by Fox 2000.)

Why unambiguously happy?

1. I like the people who are involved in this. They read the book with tremendous clarity and care, and they didn’t respond to it by being like, “This will make a billion dollars and we’ll all be rich,” which was really refreshing.

2. One of the producers is a Liverpool supporter.

3. There’s been a lot of grumble grumble the same production company made Twilight grumble grumble. Well, rest assured: They won’t make Twilight again. They can’t, because my book contains no vampires and very little glitter. What they’ve shown is an ability to make movies people like without comic book characters and billion dollar budgets, which is an underappreciated skill, and one that I find very valuable going into a challenging project like this one. It’s not easy to get Hollywood to make a funnysad movie about smart teenagers* with disabilities, let alone one that captures the guts of a story.

For the first time in my career, I feel like it might really work, and so I’m completely thrilled. (That said, there is a long way to go, and the vast majority of books that get optioned never actually turn into movies, and etc. etc. etc., so I’m not getting ahead of myself. But I’m very excited.)

* And, like, on some level it just required a lot of faith in contemporary movie-going audiences even to take a chance on a book like TFiOS. I am reminded of something a very prominent and famous Hollywood producer said to me about Will Grayson, Will Grayson: “The only thing audiences hate more than smart teenagers are gay teenagers.” Hearing things like that made me disinclined to work with people in Hollywood. But the discussions I’ve had with the people involved in developing The Fault in Our Stars have been vastly and refreshingly different.

Book Review: The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

I pre-ordered The Fault In Our Stars last year in August I think and like many others who ordered from Amazon UK, I expected a signed copy. Alas that was not the case, which really upset me. I told myself I couldn’t read it until I had a signed copy but lucky for me I found a signed copy at the Waterstones near my university (my local Waterstones didn’t have it and I didn’t want to ask them to order it in fear of getting another unsigned copy.)

Here’s a picture of my signed copy. I have a purple scribble :D YAY

*SPOILER ALERT!*

The Fault In Ours Stars is about Hazel Grace Lancaster who has stage 4 thyroid cancer and problems with her lungs that requires her to breathe with an oxygen tube. Hazel attends a regular cancer support meeting which is where she meets the beautiful Augustus Waters. Augustus and Hazel bond over their mutual intellect, books, video games and metaphors. Their relationship soon develops into love.

Firstly, I have to say like thousands of others who have read this book; I ADORE this book. Honestly, in my opinion this is John Green’s best work yet. I know most people love Looking For Alaska but I love The Fault In Our Stars. I finished this in one day because I just had to know what was going to happen next and I loved the main characters.

Hazel and Augustus are incredibly loveable characters. The way their love develops really touched my heart and I broke down in tears when Augustus died. I’m one of those people that lives in denial until something actually happens, so I carried on reading the book thinking “Oh he’ll survive this and so will she then they’ll live happily ever after. THE END :)” Ok i’m not that bad but it’s along those lines. When Hazel describes how Augustus deteriorates I could feel my eyes welling up (like right now as I type this) and my heart would clench. Augustus is amazing. PERIOD. It is fact. For example he uses his one wish to take Hazel across the world to meet her favourite writer just so she can find out what happens to the characters in her favourite book. Not just the characters but the bloody hamster too! All the while keeping it a secret that his cancer is back in a very aggressive form. This guy is a freaking martyr.

The way this book was written was magnificent. I like that it ended somewhat suddenly just like how An Imperial Affliction ends. You don’t get to find out what happens to Hazel and if Peter Van Houten actually writes the sequel like Augustus and Hazel wanted him to. I also liked that John was able to portray the lives of people with cancer so well but also show that illnesses do not define a person. However this does not stop others from defining them as their illness which I guess is what gets them their “cancer perks”. 

I feel like I have not done The Fault In Our Stars any justice in this review. I’m going to re-read TFIOS and hopefully I can edit this review and write something more substantial to prove to you how brilliant this book really is. 

I am giving this 5/5 and I would most definitely recommend it.