Buy The Fault in Our Stars on Amazon

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.

Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning-author John Green’s most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.

(Please excuse these disturbingly profound and insightful thoughts on The Fault in Our Stars, as I’ve just finished reading said book, which was equally profound and insightful.)

This is not a book about cancer.

Well, that’s not quite true. This is a book about the ways of the world. Illness– cancer– comes with that, I suppose.

In any case, before reading this book, or its review, for that matter, you must know that it is irrelevant, and does not pretend to be anything more. Yeah, you heard me. Irrelevant. This book is just so completely irrelevant. So keep that in mind.

First of all, I am going to talk about this book’s merit. I have never experienced the tragedy of one of my close friends dying of cancer, and do not have cancer, myself. Maybe I would not have experienced this book in the same way had this been different. However, I can sincerely recommend this book to you if you share in my ignorance of most things cancer-related. In fact, if you are as unfamiliar with cancer as I am, you must read this book. No, seriously. Read it. Read this book. *menacing face*

So, Hazel is not your typical female protagonist. She is well read, smart, and witty. She is not in school, but she values her education enough to have obtained a GED, and she takes college classes. She is not beautiful, or even cute; she blatantly admits to having a pudgy face due to steroids. Oh, and that brings me to my last point on Hazel Lancaster: she’s dying.

And maybe it is because she has been terminal since her cancer diagnosis at age 13, or maybe it’s just Hazel, but this girl has some opinions. She has opinions on the kind of things that even I don’t have opinions on– and I am not a complaisant person. Yes, The Fault in our Stars assails very, very important matters, such as people conditioning themselves to beauty, the irrevocable fact that oblivion will one day consume our world , and the heinous exclusivity of breakfast foods. I mean, come on, people. Bacon and eggs should be acceptable lunch foods, too! It would be unfair to limit them to the word ‘breakfeasty’!

As for August Waters, let me just say: wow. Just wow. He’s bright and freaking hilarious and he admits his flaws– and plays up his qualities. Having had cancer (He has now been NEC (No Evidence of Cancer) for some time), he is also incredibly deep. I mean, he buys cigarettes, but doesn’t smoke. Why, you might ask? Some sort of metaphor; putting the killing thing into your mouth but never actually giving it the power to kill you.

I’ll give you a couple of Augustus Waters teasers (although one or two snippets of his incredible wit could never measure up to actuality) :

“All salvation is temporary,” Augustus shot back. “I bought them a minute. Maybe that’s the minute that buys them an hour, which is the hour that buys them a year. No one’s gonna buy them forever, Hazel Grace, but my life bought them a minute. And that’s not nothing.”

“Why? Why would you even like me? Haven’t you put yourself through enough of this?” I asked, thinking of Caroline Mathers.

Gus didn’t answer. He just held on to me, his fingers strong against my left arm. “We gotta do something about this frigging swing set,” he said. “I’m telling you, it’s ninety percent of the problem.”

*Sigh*

Based on this, you can obviously determine that the romance between these two characters is beautiful. (Yes, that’s the right word.) It’s not spray tan romance, or lust, or even based on outward appearance in any way. There are just two people who understand each other, and they suit each other perfectly. It’s the kind of couple that you see, and you think “Wow. They just fit. They’d be crazy not to love each other.” (Of course, I might fit with Augustus Waters, too. It’s a possibility.)

Basically, The Fault in our Stars made me laugh and cry and scream more times than I can count on two hands. It’s just that kind of book. At one point, I actually cried so much and for such a prolonged period of time that my sister went and got me a wipe for my mascara. My sister is two. Yeah, it was that bad.

But don’t let that scare you away. The Fault in Our Stars is pure awe. It is just magnificent. Amazing. Wonderful. As stated previously, it is not a book about cancer. It is a book about life. And there cannot be life without death. In some cases, that death just comes prematurely.

Five stars. The Fault in our Stars is an emotional whirlwind, an epic, and an infinity of questions and possibilities compacted into 313 pages of laughter and tears. And there’s no way that that combination could exist without it being rated 5 stars.

I’ll keep you posted,

I’m going to keep this review short and sweet. Or, rather, short and not-so-sweet.

Here are my basic thoughts on this book:

-The main character, Jacob, is stupid.

-The premise is interesting. The way it’s carried out is stupid.

-The author is stupid.

-The author’s name is stupid.

For some odd reason, I thought that Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, a book featuring an orphanage who’s orphans are dead (or are they?), would be thrilling. Mysterious. Addictive.

This is not the case. In fact, it is so far from the case that the case is barely visible on this vast horizon of sheer stupidity. Actually, when I finished the book– oh, wait. I didn’t finish it. I could not finish it. Right.

All that you really need to know is that this book sucks. Don’t read it. If you are truly attracted to Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, as I was, by its cool photos, flip through the novel in the store. And then wipe your hands on your pants and run like hell in the other direction. Or just check out what is, in my opinion, the book’s best photo.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children earns 1/5 stars. Quite frankly, I would rate it 0.9, but the book trailer was (deceivingly) terrifyingly amazing, and the premise was good.

I’ll keep you posted,

Doesn’t Incarnate have a really unique premise? Doesn’t it sound like an addictive page turner? Doesn’t it sound amazing? Yeah, well, it’s not. At all.

I mean, the cover is beautiful. The imagery is lovely. The way Meadows writes is just lyrical. But that’s really hard to enjoy when the setting is so mysterious, the main character is utterly self-deprecating, and the plot is completely focused on a romance that is just awkward to begin with.

Incarnate takes place in Range, which is a country in a fantasy world which is loosely based on our own. Range encompasses one city, called Heart, which inhabits the great majority of the million souls. Ana has lived on the outskirts of Heart for most of her life, but to discover the purpose of her existence, she must travel to the city, so this is where most of Incarnate takes place.

For the most part, I loved this world. I loved that the walls surrounding the city had a heartbeat; that’s why the city is named Heart. I loved the mysterious, door-less temple in Heart’s centre. I loved the acid-spouting dragons and the sylph, who are shadow creatures that burn to the touch. I loved the market days and the masquerade parties and the amazing, floor-to-ceiling-books library that Meadows described.

What really irked me about the setting is the mystery of the rest of the world. As I mentioned before, Range is just a country in an original, fantastical world. But Meadows never describes any part of the rest of this world. Reading Incarnate, I had so many questions.  Is Range the only country whose souls are continually reincarnated? Does the rest of the world even consider its people to have souls? What about dragons? Do they attack the rest of the world, as well? None of these questions are answered.

Next, the characters.  Ana is not a very likable protagonist. Because of her troublesome background, which is to say that she originates from an oppressive environment with an emotionally abusive mother, she is very self-degrading. Now, I’m a fairly empathetic person. If characters come from homes where their mothers tell them they’re worthless, I will sympathize with them. I will comfort them mentally. I will feel sorry for them. But when it gets to the point of every other sentence of a novel being something like: “I’m nothing. Nobody cares. I don’t deserve friends.”, I will not sympathize. I will bang my head against a wall and hope the author kills off the character in order for a new protagonist to take her place.

Enter Sam. Sam is the first person who reassures Ana that she is not some evil, soul-less creature, but rather a new soul. He takes Ana in, and cares for her. He buys her things. He’s very hospitable, really. Sam is round character, because he has so many aspects to his personality. I really rather liked Sam, actually.

I’m going to mention Incarnate’s other characters– oh, wait. I have nothing to say. These characters basically don’t exist.  This really upsets me. I feel like they could have been so much more, they had so much potential, but Meadows limits them, she doesn’t allow them to develop, opting to focus on the romance between Sam and Ana.

Ana and Sam’s romance was actually really hard for me to grasp. I just couldn’t relate to it. I’m blaming this on Meadows’ interpretation of reincarnation. In Incarnate, each soul can be born as male or female in different lifetimes. This means that Sam, the love interest in this book, has been a girl many times before. This just made reading the book really awkward, especially during scenes that consist pretty much of the following dialogue:

SAM: So, I’ve got some girl stuff in the bathroom if you need it.

ANA: What? Do you just keep all this stuff around in case a girl comes to stay awhile?

SAM: No, it’s mine.

ANA: Oh, okay.

Can you say uncomfortable?

Speaking of the romance between Sam and Ana, I feel as though it really restricted the development of the plot.  When I picked up this book, I was hoping for a storyline based on a road to self-discovery. I was hoping for a journey that ended with some sort of enlightenment. I was hoping for a good plot.

Instead, what I do get stuck with? A girl who promises that she’s on this path to discover the purpose of her existence, but then completely forgets her goal as she falls for a guy who’s, like, three thousand years older than her. Yep. That’s determination, right there.

And what’s worst? During Incarnate, Sam mentions that he and Ana share the same birthday. The next day, Ana find out that Sam’s birthday is actually two weeks before hers. Later on, Ana notices that Sam sneaks out at night, after he believes that she is asleep. Does she confront him about any of these things? No. Does she even call him out on any of these things? No. Does she completely forget that he lied to her and is going behind he back? Yes, yes, she does.

Finally, Meadows had a unique, interesting, amazing concept. And she could have taken this and ran with it, and developed it, and made it into something marvelous. Instead, she chose to kill the plot and her readers by bestowing us with *cringe* Ana. And that’s just so disappointing. Incarnate gets 2/5 stars.

I’ll keep you posted,

Hello, everyone!

I want you all to know that I could not find the proper widget to randomly select a winner. So I decided to do it the old fashioned way. Yep. It took about an hour, but I cut out 108 usernames and drew one out of a hat. Next time, we’ll be doing this differently. ;)

But to get on with this,

The winner is…

*Drumroll, please.*

Charliesheenwannabe2!

Congrats, Charlie! You have won an audio copy of Cinder, by Marissa Meyer! You have 48 hours to claim your prize, so email me at whatyareading@gmail.com before 8:00 PM (ET), Thursday March 8th.

I’ll keep you posted,

Hi, everyone!

Spring break is coming up! *excited* Looking for something to read during the week off? Well, I’ve got some ideas…. like an audiobook of Cinder by Marissa Meyer, courtesy of MacMillan Audio! Yay! Read Cinder‘s review here.

Here’s what you have to do to enter:

Register as a user for my site. (To do this, look at the top right corner of your screen. See where it says register? Yeah, click that.)

If you already have registered and do not want to enter this giveaway, send me an email (that’s at whatyareading@gmail.com) with ‘no giveaway’ as  the subject.  If you do not email me, I am going to assume that you want free stuff. Who doesn’t?

You have 1 week to enter– that is, until Monday, March 5th at 7:00 PM (ET). If you win this giveaway, you will have 24 hours to claim you prize.

Good luck to you all!

I’ll keep you posted,