The Fault in Our Stars

Time for another book review!

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.

(pause for effect)

Well.

Well.

We-ell.

As I'm sure you've probably noticed, TFIOS happens to be one of the most popular books right now. Though I can totally relate to being obsessed with books, I just cannot relate to being obsessed with this one. It is actually quite horrifying the images I saw when I googled "the fault in our stars." This is a cross-stitch pattern of "Okay? Okay."

Ahem. No comment.

I looked up "divergent" just to see what happened. Here are the results: pictures of the book covers, pictures of the actors in the movie, some fan art/jewelry/etc., but NOT A SINGLE CROSS-STITCH! Outrage!

I mention this just to make the point that though other books have become immensely popular (i.e. Divergent), TFIOS is still more popular than most new YA fiction.

Personally, I was disappointed by it. From what other people told me, this book would be practically life-changing: romantic and sad, a book that teaches you so many things about life and death and loss. While I was reading it, I kept waiting for some profound sentence or two that would make the whole thing worth my time. I never found anything too profound in it.

My absolute least favorite part of the book was the whole Hazel thinking her favorite author is going to be amazing and tell her everything that happens after the book ends. I think it makes her seem kind of self-centered and naive. First of all, she pretty much assumes that the author: a. knows everything that happens after the book ends, and b. is going to share that information with her. She always says how she doesn't like all the cancer perks and wishes she was treated normal, but without cancer perks, she wouldn't even be able to meet the author.

Just to be fair, here's my favorite part: Oh wait, I don't have one.

Though this wasn't my favorite book, I do recommend that sometime in your life you read it. Even just so you can watch the movie while keeping your integrity intact. (Rule of Life #1: You can't watch the movie before you read the book.) By the way, whenever I see the trailer for TFIOS movie, I fangirl a little. The movie looks really good. Maybe better than the book. (Even though Rule of Life #2: The movie is never better than the book — except for Lord of the Rings.)

Essays

I'll get back to John Green tomorrow, but today I need to talk about something that absolutely infuriates me. Essays. I am currently writing one for school and it is killing me. Even though I try to be creative and put my own spin on it, it is almost impossible to write an entertaining, fun essay that not only shows how much you've learned, but also your voice and writing style.

Essays are terrible creatures sent from Hell to destroy our creativity until we are all mindless typing drones, click-clacking day and night at meaningless questions.

No I'm not being melodramatic!

Everyone who is in the field of education: GET A CLUE! Essays do not help ANYTHING! Teachers assign essays for a few reasons, but their reasons are NOT legitimate!!!!!

First of all, to find out someone's writing style, maybe you should let them BE CREATIVE! Write poetry, or prose, or ANYTHING BUT AN ESSAY! I know when I write essays, I don't actually need to know the subject. All you do is paraphrase and regurgitate the information. It doesn't show knowledge.

ESSAYS ARE STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!

John Green

I haven't posted anything in a really long time. The summer just flew by. School starts on Wednesday, which means all the things like buying school supplies and summer homework that I procrastinated have to be finished in just a couple days.

I've been planning to post this for a very long time but I haven't gotten around to it. I recently read two books by John Green: The Fault in Our Stars and Looking For Alaska.

I got halfway through Looking For Alaska when I impulsively bought The Fault in Our Stars at Target. I read it, then finished reading Looking For Alaska.

Considering all of the good reviews for TFIOS, I had high hopes for the book, and pretty much thought that everything written by John Green was magic or something.

I was severely disappointed.

I'll go into more detail on the specific things I didn't like in the next few days.

Personally, I feel almost bad for not liking these books, because I think John Green seems like a nice guy. I think I could be his friend if I ever met him. I just don't think he writes exceptional books. They're really not bad, but I just don't see how everyone who reads his books love them so much.

It just made me kind of mad. I had been waiting to read TFIOS for soooo long, and it wasn't even that good! It was ten whole dollars at Target! Ten whole dollars wasted! Not acceptable!

Hanged vs. Hung

It's Grammar Thursday! Today I'll be explaining the difference between "hanged" and "hung." A lot of people know this rule, but a surprising amount don't. Including my history teacher. U.S. history. Generally that involves a lot of people being hanged. Um . . . Salem Witch Trials?

So, the rule is:

Hanged is the killing one.
Example: "Martha, did you hear? Mark was hanged yesterday for murdering his baby koala!"

Hung is used for everything else.
Example: Yesterday after work, Isabelle dejectedly hung her jacket on the hook. She had been fired.

Image from: taaroko.deviantart.com

Vacation Time!

Going to New Jersey to visit relatives! I might not be able to post anything for a few days, sorry!

Lynx kitten:

Image from: www.zooborns.com

And again:

Image from: www.treehugger.com

The Literary Double-Edged Sword

I'm reading The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (yes, I know, everyone has already read it) and I've been thinking about some literary double-edged swords.

In The Fault in Our Stars, Hazel has cancer. She is dying. Dying. DYING. As in, going to die, about to kick the bucket, preparing to retire from being a human. Now, as an author, you have two choices: Hazel lives, or Hazel dies.

Personally, when a character who should die ends up living, it seems too happily-ever-after. The girl who was on her deathbed at the beginning of the book is miraculously cured by the end, even though in real life it would never happen that way. I feel like when authors do this they are taking the easy way out and not taking any chances by having someone die in their book.

But if the character who should die does die, there is still a problem. If the person dies, I just think, "Oh well, of course she was going to die. That's so obvious. I can't believe the author just let the character die like that. Maybe they could have been more creative and had some sort of plot twist to save the character."

See the double-edged sword?

Here are some examples of a plot twist:

1. Character lives, best friend dies.

2. Character lives, parents die in fatal car crash.

3. Character lives, but is confined to a wheelchair, loses a sense, gets brain damage, etc.

4. Character dies, comes back as a ghost, and haunts her family and friends.

5. Character dies, cavorts around this afterlife being a ghost . . . la la la . . .

Feel free to share some of your favorite plot twists! Leave them in the comments below.

Croak by Gina Damico

I know that in most book reviews the book is given a rating between 1 and 5, but I'm not going to do that because it seems like a very black-and-white way to describe writing that is not in the least black-and-white.

I just finished reading this book a few days ago. Here's a link to the summary: http://www.amazon.com/Croak-Gina-Damico/dp/0547608322/ref=la_B005HJ023Y_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405099475&sr=1-1

From the summary, I assumed this book would be pretty predictable: Juvenile delinquent girl (Lex) stays with uncle for the summer; uncle is a grim reaper; uncle tells Lex that she's a grim reaper; she has adventures being a grim reaper; her family doesn't want her to live in the grim reaper town; she has to convince them; Lex ends up living happily ever after in GrimReapersVille.

I was so so wrong.

This book was really about the juvenile delinquent girl who uses her powers of destruction (in a figurative sense) for good instead of evil when she finds out she's a grim reaper. Lex learns quickly and finds new friends and a new sense of place in Croak, the grim reaper town. Of course, when she enters the town, many conflicts occur. There is a series of unknown deaths that even the Grims can't explain. One thing leads to another and the thing she loves most is hurt in an attempt to stop the killer.

It's not all sad, though. When Lex isn't reaping souls, she's out having fun with her new friends and watching dead presidents fight in the afterlife. (Grims can visit the afterlife whenever they want, as a perk of the job.)

This book was fun to read, but the fun didn't take away from the plot. I almost cried at the end. I really enjoyed reading this, and I'm pretty sure there's a second and third book in this series. If there's not, I might just die.