Today I read an amazing book, a book that deserves to be praised with words that outshine mine, a book that has to be incredibly haunting to those with the misfortune of being touched by the subject matter, today I read The Fault In Our Stars by John Green.
I have been hearing/seeing how amazing the book is for months, months upon months. And like most good readers, and likely children of former librarians I am the type of person who always has at least 3 or 4 good books in their possession that they somehow haven't managed to schedule in and read yet. Instead I often re-read old books or seek out entirely new ones.
Everything I had heard about this book before finally picking it up and starting it was praise. So much freaking heaping praise you couldn't believe. Barnes and Noble gives it it's on little section in the store. It has two versions available in hardback (yet not available in paperback), a regular version and whatever the silver looking lining means about the deluxe version means. But anyway back to the praise, so much praise. On twitter, yes this is where late twenty somethings get everything from the news to book/movie recommendations from complete strangers who feel like friends, I follow a couple of writers whose books I love and other people in general whose lives I envy, and they are all like THE FAULT IN OUR STARS the best book of 2012, the best book ever, the BEST! And spoiler alert it's a tearjerker. It's a box of Kleenex as your constant companion tearjerker. No one ever once tried to hide the tearjerker nature of the novel from me, or as far as I can tell from the internet from anyone. Oh no those total strangers won't steer you wrong. The book also doesn't pull any punches, for the record the book jacket spells it out pretty clearly. "Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal,"
Ok so going into it you know the miracle has been used up and you are in for the beautiful sadness that remains. I devoured this book, probably the fastest I read 317 pages in a long time. I also decided to read a book that I was well, well aware was a tearjerker on my patio/balcony for all my neighbors to see. I'm not always the smartest girl in the world but I somehow couldn't resist the afternoon sun and so instead I decided to introduce myself to the neighbors by quietly sobbing for 3 hours on my balcony. At least I can hope they don't think I'm crazy and I am just really moved by Memorial Day.
I'm not going to spoil it for you. Really this book is too good to spoil. You need to read it, you need to feel like, you need to quietly sob on your metaphorical balcony. And spoiler alert unless you heart is made entirely of stone you are going to cry, probably sob. And yet you will love it and keep on reading until the end, the very very end.
P.S. This is actually classified as young adult novel. I read of lot of young adult novels, not because I long to be a teenager again. Like gag me with a spoon if I had to go through that again, but simply after a certain grade reading level good books aren't classified by how much education you need to have achieved to understand it but rather by its subject matter. And I can say without a doubt I have read so many young adult novels that outshine "adult" novels in every way imaginable.
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