The Fault in Our Stars

I have two words to say about John Green's The Fault in Our Stars: Holy crap. What a celestial body of a book. It shines. It sparkles. It's intelligent and hilarious and absolutely stellar and it makes you believe in love and in other worlds and I will never forget it.

If you haven't heard about it or seen the movie trailer, The Fault in Our Stars is the story of Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters. They meet at a cancer support group. They fall in love. They experience life together. Maybe you can guess how it ends.

There's no "best thing" about this novel, but one of the great things was how fantastic the characters are. They're the kind of characters you wish desperately were real because they're so much more interesting to talk to than most of the people you actually go to school with. And they're more than their cancer; they don't let their sickness define them and they don't just go around feeling sorry for themselves. I was worried when I started to read this book that the whole thing was just going to be a cancer sob story, but the characters made it far less about the disease than it was about the human experience, which I appreciated.

Another thing I thought really added to the book was the great dialogue. It's very realistic; Green's word choice makes it sound like stuff real people would actually say, which can be difficult to find in a book. It also has a tendency to be quite profound, especially coming from Augustus. Since you can't see the characters' eyes, their dialogue provides a little window into their souls.

Please don't write this book off just because you hate crying; I was actually too sad to cry for most of the book. However, if you hate being sad, are offended by occasional foul language and semi-sacreligious remarks or are intimidated by brilliant and charismatic boys, this book is probably not for you. Also, full disclosure, there's a mild sex scene.

Despite it's few flaws, I loved The Fault in Our Stars and frankly think everyone should make time for the experience of getting to know Hazel Grace and her marvelous cast of supporting characters. A+.

Things fall apart

Things Fall Apart is a book that talks about how African culture was demolished by the catholic missionaries that came to spread their faith to Niger and places around it. In this book you follow Okonkwo, a native to the tribe of Umuofia and a very high class citizen in the village. He grew up to a lazy father and from a young age had to sharecrop to feed himself and his family. But as he grew up he finally started to obtain enough money to buy his own yam crop and start farming for himself. As he grew older his farm prospered and he became a powerful man and was of very high status. Until one day when a funeral was happening and they were firing off the ceremonial guns but Okonkwo's gun exploded killing a child. He was banished for seven years because of the accident and the villagers burned his compound and all his yam crops. So he left in exile depressed and under lots of pain to his motherland where he started anew with a small compound and only a few yams. Half way through the seven years Okonkwo is back on his feet with a new yam farm strange white men start coming into the village talking of only one god and building churches and all of the tribes were shaken because of it. Finally seven years have passed and Okonkwo is allowed to return to Umuofia to find it taken over by the missionaries. He is invited to talk to the leader of the missionaries but is tricked and thrown in jail. After being released and stripped of his pride Okonkwo lashes out in a rage, killing a white messenger and hanging himself.

Although this book wasn't very interesting to read, it was very informative on European culture, and very sad. I think this book if your willing to wade through slow parts is a very good read for someone of a medium understanding of African society.

Thanks Mrs. Jensen for a wonderful 8th grade year!
-Will

The Beginning of Everything

Sarah Mlynowski definitely knew what she was talking about when she called Robyn Schneider's The Beginning of Everything "heartbreaking and hilarious," and said that "girls everywhere are going to fall madly, deeply, hopelessly in love with Ezra Faulkner." As a teenage girl, I can tell you first hand that that is absolutely true.

 

The novel, which in the UK is known by the title Severed Heads, Broken Hearts, follows Ezra through the aftermath of his tragedy- a car accident that smashed not only his knee, but his social life and the future he had planned. A car accident that threw his life upside down and right into the middle of Cassidy Thorpe's. Of course, they fall in love. She, in all her mysterious bohemian glory, shows him the world as he hadn't considered it before, teaches him not to care what people think, how to let himself be different. Of course, something goes terribly wrong.

 

The ending was so unexpected and unbelievable (yet totally convincing) that it's taking all of me not to spoil the entire book, but I won't. The great thing about The Beginning was that it was unpredictable, contrary to the norm as far as teen novels go, and I'd hate to ruin that. But this book was different in other ways, too. It alluded to classic novels, quoted poetry and actually meant something- it said something. Maybe I'm a little unconventional myself, but a call to action is so important to me in a good book. One hundred points to Schneider.

 

Another thing I really appreciated as I read this novel was that Schneider gives you a reason to give a crap. About the characters, that is, about what happens to them. I read a book recently where a girl gets kidnapped, but she was so annoying and bland that I just thought, "Kill her already! Hold her for ransom! She's not good for much else." Reading The Beginning of Everything, though, I did fall in love with Ezra Faulkner. I fell in love with Toby, and Phoebe, and Cooper. I hated Charlotte and Evan and Jimmy and Luke and sometimes Cassidy, but at the same time understood her and half-wanted to be her. I felt personally invested in Ezra's destiny. I cared. I had a reason to keep reading.

 

I could go on and on, but instead I'd better acknowledge, albeit reluctantly, the book's flaws. The thing that bothered me the most was Schneider's use of ridiculous replacements for the word "said" and, when she did use it, long adverbs after it. "Enthused," "deadpanned," "said sheepishly..." I found that sort of annoying. Also, she used a lot of phrases a bit too frequently throughout the book. Maybe those things don't irritate anyone else, but there they are, acknowledged, just in case.

 

Also, please take note of the fact that this book is full of passionate kissing, curse words, explicit references and other scenes and dialogues of that kind. Of course, that's exactly what high school is full of, so that makes the novel realistic, but if those things bother you, avoid this book.

 

Ultimately, I loved The Beginning of Everything. I encourage anyone mildly interested to indulge themselves in the fantastic reading experience it provides. A

The Weight of a Human Heart: Stories

Simon Van Booy labeled this collection of short stories "Inventive, witty and profoundly human." I can absolutely attest to that. The Independent, a UK publication that I assume is a magazine, said of The Weight of a Human Heart, "O'Neill is... joyfully original with format... [in] this collection." Also very true. However, I do not agree entirely with Wiley Cash's comment on the book: "If someone asked me to name my ideal collection of contemporary short fiction, I'd point to The Weight of the Human Heart and say, 'This is it.'" While I certainly enjoyed Ryan O'Neill's stories, they got to be mildly irritating in their redundancy toward the last several pieces. 

How can I summarize twenty-one (somewhat) different stories in only a few sentences? That's a difficult task to carry out. But the summary given on the jacket gives one sentence on just a few of the stories, so I'll do the same here: In the one story that was more amusing than depressing, a gay man's wife confesses to loving his brother, a criminal, as she dies. A boy living in his comic books drives his mother to suicide by his choice to live with his cruel, emotionally abusive father rather than her. The wife of one of the multiple English teachers in the book has an affair with his top student. The neglected daughter of a drug addict and heartless writer of a mother cares for her dying parent in the story that gives the book its name. And now, an elaboration of my opinion.

In beginning this collection, I was amazed by the convincing humanity of O'Neill's characters, his brilliant feats of format and his touching plots. However, while each of the stories was a work of art in its own right, I was disappointed in the compilation as a whole as I continued to read and found that many of his main characters are roughly the same; fourteen of the twenty-one main characters are white, Australian men like their creator. Two of those teach English to foreign people as a profession (as does a female character in "The Saved"), three are aging, and five are writers of one genre or another, as are some of their wives. There are also three stories having to do with the genocide in Rwanda, and one member of nearly every couple whose relationship plays a significant role in its respective piece is unfaithful. Again, despite the fact that the individual stories are some of the best you'll ever read, the O'Neill's repetitiousness is... well, tiresome.

I should warn potential readers that several of the pieces in The Weight of a Human Heart include the following: highly offensive language (as in enough to make a movie rated R), affairs, references of the kind you probably want to avoid, substance abuse, and extremely dismal and distressing content. In O'Neill's defense, these kinds of things help a lot in writing something "profoundly human," but I'll admit that it does make for a rather uncomfortable read at times. On that happy note, allow me to close with a statement by Megan Mayhew Bergman: "The Weight of a Human Heart is refreshing, funny, devastating. Ryan O'Neill's stories break rules to great effect; they're adventurous, textured, full of heart. His prose is active and vivid; his characters are imperfectly real, out in the world and under pressure. ... [O'Neill's] stories are... deeply satisfying and offer glimpses into worlds readers need to see, worlds that are vile, beautiful, and utterly human." B

  While recently scrolling through the D- reviews, I came across a book I thoroughly enjoyed, Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. I decided that I would defend this book because I really liked it.
The book is about a teenager named Bella Swan, who moves from hot, Phoenix, Arizona to the small town Forks, Washington. Once she gets to the school, she meets Edward Cullen, a mysterious boy she immediately takes an interest in (although liking him would not be the right word for this situation... yet.). Edward immediately seems to dislike Bella, for reasons she can't understand. Then, Edward is gone for a week from school. Bella, suspecting it is because of her, becomes fed up and decides to confront him, and he surprises her by being nice to her.
  One night, Bella is told a story by her good friend Jacob Black. He tells her legends from his tribe say that Edward's family, The Cullen's, are vampires. Bella decides to investigate this, to which she begins to believe the legend. After a while of prodding, Edward finally fesses up. His family are vampires, but they are "good" vampires. They don't drink human blood, instead, they feed on animals. That is why Edward resented Bella the first day, because he was thirsty and she smelled very good to him. He left for that whole week to hunt. He tells her a few other things the vampires can do, including that he can read minds. Well, except Bella's.
  Soon, Edward and Bella begin (quickly I might add) to fall in love. They are nearly inseparable, and Edward eventually takes Bella to meet his vampire family. They go and play vampire baseball later, which leads to some not-so-nice vampires to begins tracking her, and it becomes a life or death situation for Bella.
  I LOVE this book. I think Stephanie Meyer is a phenomenal author, and she words things so beautifully. To those who judge this book by it's movie: The Edward Cullen in the movie and in the book are very different. In the movie, I think he is almost... weak. I'm not sure why I feel that way, but the book he is well developed. His character believes in good, he is a hero in many situations, yet he still believes himself to be a monster. It breaks my heart (yes, I have a fictional crush on Edward.).
Overall, I am head over heels for Twilight! The person who wrote the D- review was reading the book just to prove it was as bad as she thought it was. I can see why it is a bestseller. I, on the other hand, give Twilight an A+.
If you have a bad opinion on this book, Isuggest you actually read it haven't already. You might actually like it.
Also, #teamedward. Haha.

The Selection by Kiera Cass

Rating: PG (mild language and brief VERY mild discussion of sexuality)

Grade: C+

I am a sucker for a YA book with a pretty dress on the cover. Can't help it. I like pretty things. So, even though I picked up the book, read the jacket, and thought it might not be for me-I read it anyway. 

With that introduction, answer this riddle--What famous YA novel includes a lottery, choosing one person from each state to go and compete until there is one person left? All the contestants have their own design team, who sew outfits especially for them; they all are interviewed by a famous interviewer, are filmed and watched by everyone in the country, and the main character just can't seem to be what everyone expects her to be? Hmmm...sound like The Hunger Games? Well, its not.  The Selection feels all too familiar to this reader. Swap out the killing and the arena and replace it with a prince/princess version of The Bachelor competition and you have The Selection. I could not get past the similarities of the books--it was highly annoying. That is not to say The Selection wasn't a fun read. It was just SO predictable. I found myself saying, "Oh, now I bet. . .will happen." Then it did.

America Singer lives in the (post-apocalyptic?) country of Illea, formerly America. She is chosen to be one of the "selected" young women to battle it out in order to marry the prince and someday become queen. America doesn't want to put her name in the lottery, but does so at the urging of her secret boyfriend, Aspen (insert love triangle here).

The girls all show up at the castle and will be whittled down to ten girls (called the Elite), and will eventually be narrowed to the one true love of the prince, Maxon. This is first and foremost a romance--with the possibility for a political turn of events. Rebels within the country strongly oppose the government and especially the Selection. Said rebels attack the castle, sometimes violently and sometimes just to ransack it. America's resentment at being chosen for the Selection begins to dissipate as she gets to know Maxon...and her resentment turns to the typical YA female character feeling of confusion ("Oh, who do I choose? My impoverished secret boyfriend who broke my heart or the prince of the country?")

All the romance aside-one aspect that I really enjoyed was that the author, Kiera Cass, has resurrected the caste system for her country. Her characters have opportunity, wealth (or lack of), and career choices directed by their caste. The castes are numbered 1-8, ones being the royal family, and eights being, essentially, homeless beggars. America is a five, which means her caste allows her to be an artist and only an artist. As such, America's family makes little money and food is hard to come by (ah, another allusion to The Hunger Games). America's caste is considered poor and are often not regarded as much by the higher castes. I found this part of the book so interesting and unique that I wish it would have been the basis of the novel rather than a component to the characterization. However, the political potential I mentioned earlier could very well incorporate this incredibly unfair system later in the trilogy. Yes, I will probably read the rest of the books.

The read is fast and simple--and like I said, fun. This isn't a life changing book, but if you want to have some entertainment, The Selection will do wonders.