Young Adult - John Green - The Fault in Our Stars (2012)

I read this book today. I started it on the toilet this morning, and finished it in bed this evening. I plowed through most of it while Bryan was at the gym.

Sorry, I get ahead of things here.

I bought this book after a faulty therapy session, my first, after a very anxious morning. (I have since switched to a different therapist, who I go to see again tomorrow). I went to the bookstore to make myself feel better--not the most healthy way of dealing with my rampant emotions that day, but effective when paired with a nap. I picked this up primarily because it was on one of the bookshelf ends in the sci-fi/fantasy section. Since it was riddled with reviews and bestseller accolades from not the usual suspects for the genre, I knew it wasn't meant to attract the attention of the nerds, but rather the book skimmers who apparently don't go to bookstores to buy books for themselves, but follow someone on their way to their favorite section. I picked it up anyway. I didn't even really bother with what it was about. That's how upset I was that day.

It's now two months later, and I read this book in a day. Primarily because I really liked it.

This story is about teenagers with cancer falling in love. I know, how Lifetime-y, right? But this one is actually worth your time, especially if you like characters. Over the course of the read, you really do begin to love Hazel and Augustus (what unfortunate names!) just as they begin to love each other. When the inevitable happens, it isn't contrived and sigh-worthy as you would think, but instead heart-breaking. I didn't cry, but I came rather close several times. I didn't want Bryan to think I was a pansy or something.

The only thing I have to complain about (oh man, you should see this coming) is the Q&A and "Discussion Questions" at the back of the book. There is no reason at all for an author to explain the symbolism of passages or character names or allegories to other literature bullshit. None. Why? Why do they think that we need to be tutored on the "meanings" of their fucking book? Why can't it just be a heart-wrenching story about two unfortunate young people dealing with shortened lives together without ancient mythology getting involved to symbolize something or whatever.

I still like the story, and the characters, and the trauma you can't help but feel during the course of the novel, but you don't have to make it pretentious for it to matter.

9/10

Buy it @ Amazon.
Buy it @ Barnes & Noble.

Young Adult - Terry Pratchett - The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents (2001)

Long time no see! Not much has changed. I just felt frustrated with reviewing the books I read before; I hadn't been enjoying the act of reading knowing that I had a blog post to write immediately after. But after this hiatus, I feel like I am ready to get back in the saddle again. And with a pretty good book too!

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents is the first YA installment in the acclaimed (both in our home and beyond) Discworld series. Because it is YA, Bryan, who normally reads all the Discworld books, hasn't bothered with it. I read it because it should come after The Last Hero, which ironically is the last Discworld book I read (several years ago, sadly). I think Bryan got me this for some Christmas, but I could be wrong.

This book is about the eponymous Maurice and a bunch of rats that ate some magical refuse from behind the Unseen University and were granted intelligence and the ability to talk. Maurice comes up with a scheme with a "stupid-looking kid" to have him play as the pied piper, and lead these specific rats out for cash. And it works out, for a while. But then they go to Uberwald.

If the title sounds familiar, it's because the idea of an amazing Maurice and some smart rats were briefly mentioned in Reaper Man. It had been such a long time that I had to look that up myself, and I still haven't found it flipping through the book.

While this book is labeled as YA and is found in that section of the bookstore, I don't think it's really YA. It doesn't feel like it, at least. What it is is very Pratchett, very Discworld. There are only four things I can think of that make it YA, and two of them are just Discworldy: there are talking animals, the book is broken up into chapters, there are illustrations to show how rats write in their language, and the ending is pretty clean.

I enjoyed reading this book. I actually stayed up late two nights in a row reading this in bed. As I said, it is very Discworld, and while there aren't many characters from the main series here, save for the obvious ones, it doesn't really matter. It fits the method of Pratchett's stand-alone Discworld books (Like Pyramids and Small Gods), and is engaging. You won't be disappointed with time spent reading this book.

10/10

Young Adult - Richie Tankersley Cusick - Starstruck (1996)

Yeah, I know, posts two days in a row? Don't get used to it. ;)

This book was a reread, obviously, and the little "Thank You" stamp inside makes me think that I bought it at a book fair in middle school. I bought a lot of books of this type when I was that old at book fairs, so it's not outside the realm of possibility. I reread it primarily because I couldn't remember a damn thing about it.

I read it pretty quickly in the past day or so because it was horrifically short in comparison to that thousand-page monster I had just gotten through. Only about two-hundred fifty pages. It is a YA novel after all, in the same vein as those Fear Streets I have sitting in my hallway bookshelf.

The basic plot is that Random Girl (a thin disguise for a Mary-Sue) wins a magazine contest where she gets to spend a week with her favorite celebrity, along with two other winners, vying to be the female lead in his next movie. Because that's totally how movie casting works. :p Anyway, turns out that the celebrity is being threatened by a crazy fan known as Starstruck and is causing all kinds of accidents at the celebrity's house in the whopping three days the girls stay there.

I was actually surprised with who the killer ended up being. Yes, it's a killer; a bodyguard is stabbed to death and the publicist is found dead in the hot tub after she spent the whole book being a raging bitch. I don't think you'll read it, but I still don't want to give it away. I thought throughout the whole book that it would be Jo, the nerdy magazine winner. She went out of her way to say that she didn't actually care for Byron Slater and had an elaborate alibi before something happened every time. It seemed like a really sloppy way to make you think it's not her only to find out that it is at the end. But she isn't. Huh.

Anyway, the main character, Miranda Peterson, is a Mary-Sue. No fucking doubt about it. Byron has a thing for her throughout the whole thing, and his buddy-driver Nick does too? And she's such a victim. All the bad stuff happens when she's around. Oh poor pitiful her. Fuckin' A.

Also, noticeably, there is the traditional "adults just don't understand" stuff when Miranda gets to the mansion. Do you guys remember The Dollhouse Murders? The main character there had a little sister that was just a little bit special, enough that she needed constant supervision, but her parents were always making her watch her and not let her have a social life? Remember? Of course you remember how frustrated you were with her parents for bitching at her for trying to do her own thing at the mall instead of bowing to every whim of her special sister. The same kind of thing happens with Miranda. She arrives in California late because planes get delayed, her suitcase is lost so she has no clothes, and the publicist is a total bitch to her and blames her for the airline's mistakes. And won't let up about it. All it does is serve to make Miranda seem like SUCH A VICTIM OMG.

A lot of stuff didn't make much sense either. If the tiger gets out, you don't go back to the party and let yourself get drugged. If you almost get crushed to death by a broken statue, and then almost have your car careen off a cliff, you don't then go out to have dinner and see a movie. And if a guy dies, you don't then go out shopping the very next fucking day. And of course the cops never get called about stalkers or death threats. It's "bad publicity". What about a dead guy, huh? Why do you lie to the media and say it was his heart? Yeah, it was his heart. It couldn't take a knife for some reason. The nerve of some people, huh?

Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is that the book is ridiculous. And not just because they constantly assume Byron is a rapist or that Miranda is trying to seduce him out of his fat stacks of cash. And also not just because the phrase "dark black" is literally written in there.

1.0/10