John Green’s New Book: The Fault in Our Stars

John Green and The Fault in Our Stars Manuscript

I can’t think of a more perfect way to start the morning other than hearing the news about John Green’s newest book which is now entitled The Fault in Our Stars. After watching John Green’s 1 hour and a half(that’s dedication for you) youtube video in which he read the first chapter of the book, here are some interesting bits of information I’ve gathered:

• Every pre-ordered copy of the book will be signed by John Green. You can pre-order your copy here.
• The book is called The Fault in Our Stars after the great line from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar that goes “The fault, dear Brutus is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
• There is no definite release date yet but the book is going be released on either March or April of 2012.
• It is currently 272 pages long but it will be trimmed to a number of pages that is a multiple of 8. (John Green said that books are all published on multiples of 8. I don’t know why.)
• It’s dedicated to Esther but it’s not about Esther. The Fault in Our Stars is a fictional novel.
• It is the Yeti’s(Sarah, his wife) favorite book from him.
• No Unicorns, Storm Troopers or Zombies. Dammit!
• There’s cursing but there’s no “awkward blowjobs” or “aggressively unerotic oral sex”.
• It’s not the desert island book.
• There’s no cover yet but you can check out this tumblr site that features a collection of fan-made cover design for the forthcoming book.
• It will be available on Kindle. “Although obviously that copy won’t be signed because I can’t get inside your kindle to sign your book.”
• Before reading the first chapter, John Green read the first part of T.S. Elliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. The quote represents as to what the book is to him.

These are the basic information from the chapter he read:

• First Sentence: In the winter of my 16th year, my mother decided I was depressed presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.
• Our narrator is a girl named Hazel Grace Lancaster, 16 years old and diagnosed with thyroid cancer. She is John Green’s first girl narrator.
• The other main character is Augustus Waters who has osteosarcoma and will probably the subject of many nerdfighter girls’ fantasies in the future.
• Basing from the infamous John Green formula, I am assuming the quirky sidekick character is Isaac. “A long-faced skinny kid with straight blond hair that swept over one of his eyes. His eyes were the problem. He had some fantastically improbable eye cancer.”
• Our characters, as you can guess, are part of a support group for kids with cancer.
• Hazel Grace religiously follows America’s Next Top Model.

You can watch the entire video by clicking on this link. If you want to watch only the first chapter reading, it starts from mark 0:38:00 to mark 1:03:00.

The Fault in Our Stars is a book about illness and death. There are tons of books that has been published about those topics recently but basing from the first chapter, it still has the same quirky humor that all of John Green’s previous books have. I guess that’s what makes this book different from all the other “dying teenager” books. I don’t know. I haven’t read that many books with this kind of theme.

You have no idea how excited I am for the release this book. I am running out of John Green books to read and the only books from him I haven’t read yet are his collaboration novel and his short stories from some short stories collection book. We badly need a new John Green book, you guys! The probability of 2012 being an Awesome year is getting bigger and bigger.

As always, dftba.

Review: An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

If you are a frequent reader of my blog, you probably already know that a) I LOVE Paper Towns, b) how much of it is woven into my DNA, c) John Green is so awesome I want to have his baby, and d) why am I even allowed to tell my thoughts online? I think that not finishing The John Green Trinity is one of the most horrible crimes one person can ever commit, and I am guilty of that. My alibi which is his books are not abundant at our local bookstores is not strong enough to acquit myself from this crime. Thankfully, before a nerdfighter police caught me and lock me up inside the Cellar of Suck, or worse, sentence me to Death by Lameness, I finally found a copy of Abundance of Katherines that saved me from that kind of demise.

Colin Singleton is the epitome of the infamous John Green Geeky Guy Formula — he is a prodigy. He is fluent in 12 different languages, reads 400 pages of a book per day, and can anagram almost anything¹. When it comes to relationships, he only dates girls with a name that is Katherine. He is recently dumped by Katherine XIX, The Great One. He is devastated, the puking-and-lying-facedown-on-the-carpet kind of devastated. To give him a distraction his best-friend, Hassan, suggested that they should go in a road trip. They end up on a small town called Gutshot, Tennesse where a woman offered them a job to interview all the town folks so they can compile an oral history of the town. But Collin is not interested in compiling an oral history. He is desperate to finish his Theorem of Underlying Katherines Predictability that will predict the outcome of a relationship between a Dumper and a Dumpee. He believes that this will fulfill his potential as a genius, make himself matter, and hopefully, win back the heart of the girl he loves.

Having read both Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns, I was surprised when I discovered that I’m not inside Colin’s head. It’s a book written by John Green and there’s the geeky guy, the smartypants best-friend and the car so why am I not inside the geeky guy’s head? It doesn’t make any sense! Eventually though, it did. Colins can’t tell a story for he always branch off to telling trivia instead of finishing it. A novel told in Colins’ perspective will be more of a textbook than a contemporary novel.

Once I got past my initial shock, I found myself back in the familiar John Green territory. There’s the laughs, lots and lots of laughs courtesy of Colins and Hassan’s witty banters. But these laughs weren’t placed in the book just for entertainment’s sake. Through this laughs we also get to see what kind of person the characters are and how strong Colins and Hassan’s relationship is. Colins is not my favorite John Green protagonist for he is a bit self-centered and though he seems to have swallowed the entire volume of encyclopedia, he is clueless that he’s clueless. Neither does Hassan is my favorite best friend. But this I can say, Colins and Hassan’s bond as best-friends is my favorite and one that I am envious of. You can feel that their friendship is much deeper than the extent of this 300+ pages book. Colins has his faults and Hassan also has his own, but they don’t take any shit from one another. They tell it straight to the other’s face what’s wrong with him just like any real friend should do. I am now talking about their friendship as if they are real people. It goes to show the real magic of John Green. He can make you care about his characters and believe as if they are real.

Of course, this would not be a John Green book if it doesn’t explore something profound. (I wonder if I can review a book from him without mentioning his name in EVERY single paragraph of the review.) Abundance of Katherines, among other themes presented, deals with the uniqueness of each person. We meet people and lose some of them eventually. Some of those we lose left a special mark on us. We tend to look for someone just like them. We usually get frustrated because no matter how hard we look we can’t seem to find someone who perfectly fits the description. It’s a truth that we have to learn to accept that no two person are identical. Each person’s uniqueness doesn’t end with the patterns in our thumbprint. It’s our entirety that sets us apart from one another. It is called identity. All we have to do is embrace it, and damn those who tries to take it away from us. As I’ve said, this is not the only thing we can take from this novel. There’s bunch of other themes that John Green handled brilliantly, but this is the one that resonates with me the most.

Abundance of Katherines, while it did not make as much emotional impact as Looking For Alaska or changed the way how I perceive people like Paper Towns and all it ever did is to remind me and justify what I already know, is still a solid and brilliant contemporary novel. John Green can do no wrong. The characters he draw, stories he tell and the many layers of it echo in me for quite a long while until it became a part of my system. I’m adding another item on my lifelong to-do list and that is to meet him. It’s going to happen. Watch this space. I am.

—-
¹ I got a slant hymn. Colin, a prodigy, can do this under a minute. I, however, did it in about half an hour, therefore I am not prodigy.

Rating: ★★★★★

Other Reviews to Consider:
Chachic’s Book Nook | Bart’s Bookshelf | One More Page
The Book Harbinger | The Book Smugglers

2010 Books A-List

Late list is late, I know, but it’s my blog. I run this shit so I can post whatever I want whenever I want. And that’s me defending my laziness and procrastination. I feel kind of bad that I wasn’t able to post this on the planned date. It’s as if there’s a part of me that wasn’t able to face the new reading year yet because of this. There is an unfinished business that needs closure. So here I am, your proven top-class procrastinator, finishing something I should have finished 2 weeks ago.

This list is quite a no-brainer for those people who had the misfortune of interacting with me this past year. Whenever I read something I really liked, I just wouldn’t shut up. I don’t think it’s an unhealthy habit, though. More often than not, they also end up liking the books I raved about non-stop. To you guys I say, You’re Welcome! Before I gloat too much you’d hit that little X button, let’s head on already to my carefully analyzed, calculated, double-checked(, procrastinated) best books of the year list.

Honorable Mentions:

• Tomorrow Series by John Marsden
• Scott Pilgrim The Comic Series by Brian O’Malley
• Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn
• Gatekeepers Series by Anthony Horowitz
• Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

10. Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey
This gruesome Gothic novel set in Victorian London took me by surprise. I had zero expectation before reading it so it was a complete shock to me when I’m beginning to realized that what I was reading is a brilliant one. Rick Yancey’s superb writing requires a little getting use to, but once you get familiar with the writing style, it is such a rewarding experience.

“Several  times I caught myself looking away from the text as if I was watching it instead, and such cowardly actions such as looking away will make me miss those violent and gory scenes.” [Reviewed here.]

9. Fablehaven:Rise of the Evening Star by Brandon Mull
Rise of the Evening Star transported me back to the simple yet fantastic wonders of Fablehaven. It was a perfect combination of awe-inspiring fantasy and a mystery that will keep you guessing until the end. The ending was totally unexpected, and it really did turned the entire story upside-down.

“The surprises hidding on Brandon Mull’s sleeves is seemingly infinite and he just keeps pulling one until the very last page.” [Reviewed here.]

8. The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan
Oh man, Red Pyramid really got me worried sick that Rick Riordan might had lost his magic already. Either that, or I already outgrew his style. You probably can’t imagine what relief it was when I found myself enjoying The Lost Hero. It was a great introduction to the new Percy Jackson’s spin-off series, Heroes of Olympus. I cannot wait for the clash of the Greek camp and the Roman camp. (Oh, come off it! It’s released for about 3 months already! A real fan of the series would have already know about the existence of the Roman gods and demigods in the new series.) (And it’s bound to have a clash between camp, right? It will be a capital L for lame if the two camps agreed to help each other right away.)

“I still think that The Lost Hero is the best from Rick Riordan so far” [Reviewed here.]

7. The Enemy by Charles Higson
The first dystopian novel in the list. Big cast of characters, relentless dialogue, and gruesome deaths here, there and everywhere — this zombie novel is really made of pure awesome. There’s nothing cooler than calling the brain-dead, brain-hungry zombies as Mothers and Fathers. It is often compared to Michael Grant’s GONE novels as both series shares some elements, but I’m totally okay with it. I love them both and they can exist side-by-side peacefully.

“He’s[Charlie Higson] a psychopath. He will let you get attached to a certain character first, then he will kill it. He’s like, ‘You’re liking this character, eh? What would you feel if I do this’, then he’ll kill that character in the most brutal way possible.” [Reviewed here.]

6. GONE novels by Michael Grant [GONE, HUNGER, LIES]
I told you they can exist side-by-side peacefully. And yes, I’m cheating as I placed three books in the series in one number. It’s one series I’m really invested into. I might end up writing a 1000-word review so just let me express my initial reactions after finishing each books:
GONE: The story is freaking on steroids! [Reviewed here.]
HUNGER: Boy oh boy! Chips, pizza, and burgers tasted even better after finishing this. [Reviewed here.]
LIES: Mind-fuck! Paranoia! You just don’t know what to believe. [Reviewed here.]

5. Unwind by Neal Shusterman
The dystopian novels goodness continues! This is one of those books wherein you have to remind yourself to stop and breath. You will not be granted the time to rest while reading this book. It always shifts from intense action sequence to tear-jerking moments, then back to intense action sequences, and so forth. Every single character has their own bleak and heartbreaking stories to tell. It was a complete roller-coaster ride of emotions.

“For Unwind, I’m willing to bet myself to be unwounded if someone I know will not like it.” [Reviewed here.]

4.Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
To My Dearest Battered Copy of Ender’s Game,

I’m really sorry if I threw you to the wall several times while reading you. It just so happens that you have one of the most mind-blowing twists ever. I couldn’t help it. I feel nauseous after you told me that, and I blacked out. I didn’t know what I am doing after that. The next thing I knew, you were lying there on the floor, battered. I’m afraid I’ve been a little bit of a sadist towards you. Forgive me.

Regretfully Yours,
Aaron Vincent

“Every scene in the battleroom will fill your hearts with desire and envy that you wish you can play in there too. This is not an exaggeration or whatever, I actually had a dream that I was playing inside the battleroom the night I am halfway through the book.” [Reviewed here.]

3. Chaos Walking by Patrick Ness [The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and The Answer]
This is I Am Cheating (Cause I Can) 2.0. I don’t even know where to start praising this awesome series. It’s breathtaking, mind-blowing, and poignant. It filled with characters you will sympathize with, villains to loath, and plots that will make you gasp. I didn’t dare to read the final book yet because Book #2 on this list left me with lots of wounds. I was afraid that if I read Monsters of Men, I’ll die(shut up!). What a wuss I am. I swear that when I muster all the courage I need, I’ll finish reading this series. Watch this space. I am.

“This is the king of kings, the Mick Jagger of YA Dystopia” [Reviewed here.]
“You will feel short out of breath as momentum increases and gravity pulls you down as you plunges down deep into the water. And as you try to swim towards the surface of the water you’ll discover that it was now suddenly covered with glass.” [Reviewed here.]

2. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Haters gonna hate, but that won’t stop me from adoring this wonderful and satisfactory finale of Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games series. If only this list is based on the number of tears shed because of the book, this one’s right there at the top. That little episode in my room when I finished reading this at 4 in the morning, crying while 30 Seconds to Mars’ This is War album is playing on the background must be the weirdest episode in a life of a teenage boy you will ever see. This book left a permanent mark on me.

“I dare say, the odds have been in my favor.” [Reviewed here.]

And the Book of the Year is…

1. Paper Towns by John Green
As this very moment, I have 10 Filipino friends in Goodreads that’s either read this book or currently reading it. I’d love to think that I’m part of the reason for this status. John Green was never a big thing here in my country, and I may not have the capability to turn this land to a full-pledged Nerdfighteria, but I am extremely happy that I was able to spread the awesomeness. Paper Towns was an entertaining and a beautiful read. Everyone gets a miracle. My miracle was this: I came across this wonderful book and it changed me and my perspective.

“It made me laugh, cry, and at the same time it made me think and feel and feel infinite.” [Reviewed here.]

There you go, folks, my ten best reads for last year: 1 Gothic Fiction, 2 Fantasies, 6 Dystopia, and 1 Contemporary YA. These are the books that made my 2010 reading year extremely awesome. Now I can officially start a new reading year. I have a feeling this year is going to be as great as the last one.

Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen

I’ve been reading a lot of dark and violent books lately. I recently joined two challenges, both of which requires me to read those kind of books. Not that I’m complaining or anything because it’s those kind of books I enjoy reading the most. I just thought I need to read something different, something light and positive, something –as my friend Tina prefers to call them– fluffy. As it turns out, Wendelin Van Draanen’s Flipped was the right book for the break from gritty novels that I needed.

The moment Juli Baker sets her eyes upon the blue-eyed Bryce Loski, she fell in love with him. Bryce, on the other hand, thinks that she’s a dangerous maniac and wants nothing but for her to leave him alone. From 2nd grade up to 7th, they had this stable relationship wherein Juli is chasing after Bryce and Bryce is trying his hardest to avoid her. Eight grade came, they found themselves in reverse situation. Juli realizes that Bryce is nothing but a tactless arrogant jerk while Bryce started to notice Juli’s iridescense.

If John Green have written an 8th grade he-said she-said coming-of-age novel, it would have been something like this. Strong-willed female lead? Check. Brilliant character development and interesting minor characters’ storyarc? Check. Spot-on potrayal of being young; hence, giving the reader a sense of nostalgia? Funny yet poignant story? Perfect and optimistic ending? Check, check and a check. The only element missing is the geeky guy which is quite prominent it Green’s novels.

Now, I’m not saying that Van Draanen is a John Green rip-off. To be compared to John Green who ranks high on my favorite authors is probably one of the best compliment I could ever give. The difference between the two of them is how they start their novels. John Green will make you laugh really loud, whereas Van Draneen will make you smile from ear to ear. A smile that is so optimistic, it can cure cancer. I guess the other difference is that Van Draanen’s novel was already adapted into a film while Green’s, for the moment, is only optioned.

Flipped is also a good companion novel to John Green’s Paper Towns. It touches the same theme Paper Towns discussed–the idea of misimagining someone. At the beginning of the novel, it’s clear that Juli loves her idea of Bryce and Bryce hates his idea of Juli. They grew up developing those ideas they have instead of actually knowing one another. It goes to show that we really have that tendency to idealize a person rather than actually knowing him or her.

And just like Q in Paper Towns, Bryce also had this revelation when he finally see Juli which leads to my favorite line from the book which is a pretty simple line but, in my opinion, says everything(not verbatim):

She looks more like her photo in that stupid article that the photo itself. If that makes any sense.

Damn, if only these books about empathy could only make me a powerful empath.

Rating: ★★★★★★

Paper Towns by John Green

Some questions why does John Green writes the same thing over and over. The way I see it, it is a kind of signature, a John Green signature. It just proves how good he is. He can use the same variables, apply a different formula and he will still get the perfect result which, in this case, is Paper Towns. Nope, he is not a mathematician. He is a novelist and what a genius novelist he is.

Quentin Jacobsen and Margo Roth Spiegelman, neighbors and best of friends at the age of 9 discovered a dead body at the middle of the park. From that point, these two grew apart and had their own social circles. Quentin, Q for short, became the nerdy, neurotic, perfect attendance, straight edge guy while Margo became —well, she became Margo Roth Spiegelman, queen of Winter Park High, whose six-syllable name was often spoken in its entirety with a kind of quiet reverence.

Q never lost his deep admiration for Margo so when she shows up one night in his window asking him to accompany her on her 11-part mission he reluctantly agrees. Q ends up having the best and wildest night of his life only to discover the next day that Margo disappeared. With the help of his friends, Radar and Ben, Q looks for the missing Margo. Little did he know that to find Margo would also mean, for the first time, actually see her.

John Green, as usual, crafted another wonderful novel filled with his usual elements that makes his books truly stand-out. His characters come to life as you turn the pages.  The secondary characters are so interesting and so well-drawn that they can have a book of their own. His clever and witty prose will make your reading experience thoroughly enjoyable.

It’s not all fun, though. If you’ve read a John Green book before, you know that his books will give you the best of both worlds. While he creates an unforgettable and laugh-out-loud kind of story, he also presents a reflective exploration on humanity without appearing as something lofty or condescending.

Paper Towns handled really well the question of connectedness and empathy we have for one another. Sometimes we tend to see a person the way we want to see them and by that, we would come to know, like or hate the idea we have of that person and not the person himself. “We idealize them as gods or dismiss them as animals”(p.198)

This made me realize how important it is for us to love reading. By reading books, especially the first person narratives, we learn how it is to be someone else. We learn how to put ourselves on somebody else’s shoes and walk a thousand miles back from where it came from. We learn to understand the joy and pain that is not ours. As Q puts it:

"Imagining isn't perfect. You can't get all the way inside someone
else. But imagining being someone else or the world being something
else, is the only way in. It is the machine that kills fascist."
                                                          (p.299)

If it’s not obvious enough: yes, I love Paper Towns. It made me laugh, cry(a bit) and at the same time it made me think and feel and feel infinite. I especially love the perfect and painfully beautiful ending.

John Green is the kind of author that even if the book doesn’t possess his name on the cover or anywhere else, you’d still know that it is from him. Read Paper Towns and marvel at the sheer awesomeness and brilliance that is John Green.

Rating: ★★★★★★