I just finished reading The Fault in Our Stars for the first of what I’m sure will be many, many times, and I’m a blubbering mess.
It’s true, what I heard countless people say before reading the novel myself: You’ll be laughing one second, then turn the page and dissolve into tears.
I had no doubts that this book would be worth the long wait, but until I actually held it in my hands, I had no idea just how worth it it was. I felt pretty much every feeling you can possibly feel in less than 24 hours all at once, and I loved every second of it.
So thank you, John Green. I know that you’ll probably never read this, which is fine. I just wanted to thank you for being such a consistently incredible writer. You’ve never disappointed me before and this book was no exception.
I’ve learned more from John and his books than I have in my almost 20 years of living, and I am so grateful for that.
Review Two: “Devilish” by Maureen Johnson
Okay, before I start this review, I want to make something clear: I am in no way against Young Adult fiction. In fact, some of my favourite novels fall into that category. But I can’t exactly say that this one is the crème de la crème. It’s not that it was incredibly bad, it just wasn’t incredibly good, either.
First off, I’m all for the demon-possessing-someone’s-soul sort of novel. I used to be – and still am, to an extent – a huge fantasy fan, but a cupcake-eating demon known as either the Poodle or Lanalee who gives people designer clothes and whose insignia is a poodle cartoon? Really? She’s also posing as a tenth-grader who offers wine to her (also underage) guests.
I thought the novel was fairly predictable; I knew where the story was going to go from anywhere between a few pages to a few chapters in advance. This isn’t to say that EVERYTHING was obvious. There were a few things that really took me by surprise and definitely kept things interesting. The ending was clever and included a huge shock. The plot didn’t really pick up until around the eighth chapter, and I found myself annoyed with a number of the characters – even the ones I was supposed to like.
Although I found that the majority of characters were very generalized/stereotyped, I figured that it was just going along with the main character’s personality (ie. Judgmental punk who thinks she’s better than everyone else because she’s part of a subculture less popular than the mainstream.) This realization, however, did not stop me from disliking the way people and groups such as the St. Sebastian boys and the ‘A3’ were generalized. Throw in a painfully idiotic sister, and I was close to throwing my head back in exasperation.
That being said, it definitely wasn’t the worst fantasy novel I’ve ever read. Although parts of it reminded me painfully of Twilight, I really enjoyed the ending, and although it was far from the norm, it was a very interesting take on possession and demons.
“I suddenly understood how some things only improve with time, how nothing is lost in the passing.”
