Review: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Release Date: January 10, 2012
Publisher: Dutton Books
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 336


Source: Bought.

Image from Penguin.com

Summary:

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. (From Penguin.com)

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The diction and characters in John Green's The Fault in Our Stars are as electric as the novel's bright blue book jacket. I finished reading this book a month ago*, and the funny, insightful Hazel and the adorably pretentious Augustus--who chooses his "'behaviors based on their metaphorical resonances'"--still burst in on my thoughts.

Hazel Grace Lancaster meets Augustus Waters at Cancer Kid Support Group. Hazel carries an oxygen tank everywhere she goes, because--in her words--her lungs "suck at being lungs." Hazel was diagnosed with incurable Stage IV thyroid cancer that had also spread to her lungs when she was thirteen. Miraculously, she's still alive at sixteen thanks to Phalanxifor, a fictional experimental drug that keeps the tumors in her lungs from growing. Phalanxifor grants Hazel some extra time, but no one knows how much. Augustus, on the other hand, is in remission from osteosarcoma that left him with a prosthetic leg. Augustus is long, lean, and hot. He invites Hazel to his house the afternoon they first meet, and she says yes.

The Fault in Our Stars is a love story: a beautiful, heartbreaking, luminous love story. While cancer plays a major role in the novel, Green never lets it consume the characters or the plot, showing that sick people are--above all--still people. At one point, Hazel remarks, "You have a choice in this world, I believe, about how to tell sad stories, and we made the funny choice." John Green makes the funny choice, too. The Fault in Our Stars is full of hilarious conversation and observations. And when I say hilarious, I mean so funny you want to roar with laughter and read the book out loud to everyone you meet. Or maybe that was just me.


Amidst all this humor, however, Green's characters face tragic, torturous situations. Life isn't fair in reality, and Green does not sugarcoat the reality of cancer. Hazel and Augustus are both forced to contemplate death more often and more seriously than average teenagers, and they are concerned with universal human desires to be remembered, to not truly die, to go on being people. The Fault in Our Stars asks readers to consider the definition of heroism and what it means to do something that matters.


The Fault in Our Stars is also a book about books. When Hazel goes to Augustus's house the afternoon she meets him, they talk about books. Augustus cajoles Hazel into revealing her favorite novel, An Imperial Affliction, which exists only in the fictional world of Green's novel. August announces that he will read it, but adds, "'All I ask in exchange is that you read this brilliant and haunting novelization of my favorite video game.'" Green's characters display an appreciation for different types of fiction, and the novel comments on the place of stories in the face of life and death.

The Fault in Our Stars is one of the best books I have ever read, and I recommend it to readers who enjoy romance, humor, and pitch-perfect prose. I was working at the library the day my branch received our copy, and it was all I could do not to rave about this book to every customer who approached me with a reference question. So I will rave here: The Fault in Our Stars is funny, addictive, quotable, deep, and lovely. And I hope many, many people decide to read it.
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*I happened to pre-order the book from the company that accidentally shipped its pre-orders early . . .

Review: A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, from an original idea by Siobhan Dowd, and illustrated by Jim Kay

Release Date: September 15, 2011
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 224

Source: My local library.

Image from the author's website.

Summary:

The monster showed up just after midnight. As they do.

But it isn't the monster Conor's been expecting. He's been expecting the one from his nightmare, the one he's had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming...

The monster in his back garden, though, this monster is something different. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor.

It wants the truth.

Costa Award winner Patrick Ness spins a tale from the final idea of much-loved Carnegie Medal winner Siobhan Dowd, whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself. Darkly mischievous and painfully funny, A Monster Calls is an extraordinarily moving novel of coming to terms with loss from two of our finest writers for young adults. (From the author's website.)
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In Patrick Ness's novel A Monster Calls, the yew tree in the churchyard behind thirteen-year-old Conor's house comes walking. The yew tree monster begins showing up while Conor's mother is in the midst of taxing chemotherapy treatments. So yes, A Monster Calls is a Cancer Book. But it is also a story about stories; the monster approaches Conor because he wants to tell the boy stories. And the stories the monster tells have teeth. The first one begins like a fairy tale, but ends unconventionally. The monster is not interested in falsehoods and happy endings.

In between Conor's encounters with the monster, Conor lives the painful, awkward life of a child with a sick parent. Conor's teachers and classmates treat him differently because his mother has cancer. Regular social and school rules no longer apply to Conor, and the unreality and unfairness of it all frustrates him. To top it off, the monster wants Conor to tell a story, too. He wants Conor to tell the truth. And it isn't the truth I thought he would tell.

A Monster Calls is a lyrical, well-written novel that contains moments of dark humor, uncomfortable realism, and, of course, pain. The novel also contains illustrations by Jim Kay that add to the foreboding, sometimes gothic atmosphere of the novel without taking the visuals completely away from the reader's imagination. However, enjoyed is not a verb I would use to describe my experience as I read this novel. Nevertheless, I highly recommend A Monster Calls to anyone of any age who wishes to read a powerful book. A Monster Calls is marketed and shelved as a young adult novel, but I think I would have a hard time recommending the book to teens and especially children looking to read for fun. This novel requires readers to acknowledge their own mortality and--perhaps most terrifying--the mortality of the people they love and all the uncertainties inherent in life. And there is the fact that Ness built this novel out of characters and a premise developed by Siobhan Dowd, an author who died of cancer before she could write this book. Different readers will react differently to this information, which Ness presents in a note before beginning his tale. I can't hand this book to someone and promise that they will enjoy it. But I can promise that they will walk away with a new appreciation for life, truth, and the struggles we may all face.

Book Review: Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

Release Date: May 24, 2011

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 400

Source: My local library.

Summary:
From bestselling, Print Award-winning author Libba Bray comes the story of a plane of beauty pageant contestants that crashes on a desert island.

Teen beauty queens. A "Lost"-like island. Mysteries and dangers. No access to email. And the spirit of fierce, feral competition that lives underground in girls, a savage brutality that can only be revealed by a journey into the heart of non-exfoliated darkness. Oh, the horror, the horror! Only funnier. With evening gowns. And a body count. (From libbabray.com)
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Reading Beauty Queens is like watching a classic screwball comedy such as Bringing Up Baby*, but smarter: author Libba Bray keeps the satiric laughs and plot twists coming so quickly that reading this novel is almost exhausting.**

After the contestants for the Miss Teen Dream pageant crash on an island en route to the pageant venue, the survivors form two teams--the Sparkle Ponies and the Lost Girls--to salvage materials from the wreckage of the plane, and search for more survivors in the jungle. Unfortunately, the list of survivors is few, and food and water are in dangerously short supply. One beauty queen reflects on the girls' predicament:

 "Ohmigosh. No food at all . . . . I am going to be so superskinny by pageant time!"

The beauty queens soon have more to worry about than food. In the universe of Bray's novel, a giant company called The Corporation seems to hold a monopoly on TV shows and all sorts of products. The Corporation also has political ambition and takes part in shady deals with leaders from other countries, like the one that's scheduled to take place between The Corporation and MoMo B. ChaCha, the dictator of the Republic of ChaCha (whose most trusted advisor is a stuffed lemur named General Good Times), on the same island as the one the beauty queens crashed on.

The resulting hijinks, violence, and explosions are wacky fun. Also, there are sequins.

Bray executes her outlandish plot with plenty of satire and wit, and the laughs don't stop when the Deep Thoughts begin. In Beauty Queens, Bray goes after materialism, gender roles, racism, society's attitude toward the handicapped, environmentalism, the fashion and beauty industries, and more. Bray invites readers to question the world around them: just because certain social ideas exist doesn't mean they're right.

Bray's main aim, however, seems to be to subvert the social expectations placed on girls and women. Bray clearly states within the novel that Beauty Queens is a sort-of retelling of Lord of the Flies, but with girls and a more positive view of humanity. While thinking about life on the island, Miss Nebraska muses:

"Maybe girls need an island to find themselves. Maybe they need a place where no one's watching them so they can be who they really are."***

Much of the novel focuses on identity. Each beauty queen has a specific struggle, although some characters bleed into the background while others are forceful and memorable.

I had mixed feelings about Beauty Queens until I finished it. The serious and funny parts don't always mesh very well, and much of the novel feels all-over-the-place. But now that I'm done reading it, I'm still thinking about it. And laughing. (General Good Times, anyone?) Beauty Queens is an enjoyable, intellectual novel, and I highly recommend it.

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*Bringing Up Baby trailer

**I'm not sure how Bray lives in her own head without laughing 24/7. Or maybe it's more of a cackle.

***This quote instantly reminded me of Barbara Kruger's 1981 work Untitled (Your Gaze Hits the Side of My Face), which uses the format of a magazine cover to suggest how aggressive the way society scrutinizes women can be.

Image from SGA Art History

Book Review: Mockingjay (Hunger Games #3) by Suzanne Collins

Release Date: August 24, 2010
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 390

Source: Bought

Summary (STOP READING if you haven't read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, plan to read them, and want to be surprised) :

"My name is Katniss Everdeen. Why am I not dead? I should be dead."

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.


It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans -- except Katniss.


The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay -- no matter what the personal cost. (From Good Reads)
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Last year I read, but did not review, Catching Fire. I didn't read any reviews of it, either, because nothing anybody said was going to stop me from reading that book. I feel the same way about Mockingjay, but I'm reviewing it anyway because I can't stop thinking about it.

Mockingjay is a fitting end to The Hunger Games series, but I can't call it satisfying. Katniss and Peeta have become two of my favorite fictional characters, and it's not a spoiler to say that they--and the reader--endure many difficult scenes in this book. Author Suzanne Collins dials the brutality of the series up a notch, and Katniss is forced to choose how violent she will be outside the arena. Katniss is physically strong, but after the last two novels she's emotionally broken, and Collins doesn't gloss over that; she doesn't grant any of the main characters a magic protagonist bubble, and she bravely allows the logical, dark reality of her fictional world to overshadow what readers may want for the characters. Be prepared for mixed feelings.

That said, the close of Mockingjay isn't without hope, and the novel does have its fun, humorous moments. Readers can also expect a closer look at colorful, hedonistic, and absurd Capitol ideas and customs. (There's a shop that sells fur undergarments.)  As for the writing, I've disliked the pacing in all three Hunger Games books, and for me Mockingjay alternated between unputdownable and annoyingly slow and repetitive. Mockingjay invites many questions about the ethics of revenge and when--if ever--violence is acceptable. Also, a lot of horrible things happen, and people die in unthinkable ways. These scenes, of course, are narrated in Katniss's matter-of-fact voice, and she's too busy fighting and being the face of the rebellion to feel the full emotional impact. And thank goodness the emotions aren't all there, or readers would be nervous wrecks after Mockingjay.

All in all, certain plot elements felt too convenient, and if you're looking for flawless prose, you won't find it here. What you will find, though, are fascinating, fully drawn characters and an entertaining and challenging read that demands thought and discussion about ends, means, and even storytelling. Most readers of The Hunger Games series already have it on their To Be Read list, and anyone who read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire and didn't hate the books owes it to themselves to see how Katniss's story--and that awful cliffhanger in Catching Fire--turns out.

Book Review: Flash Burnout by L.K. Madigan

Release Date: October 19, 2009

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 336

Source: My local library.

Cover image from BTSB Bookstore

Summary:

Fifteen-year-old Blake has a girlfriend and a friend who’s a girl. One of them loves him, the other one needs him.

When he snapped a picture of a street person for his photography homework, Blake never dreamed that the woman in the photo was his friend Marissa’s long-lost meth addicted mom. Blake’s participation in the ensuing drama opens up a world of trouble, both for him and for Marissa. He spends the next few months trying to reconcile the conflicting roles of Boyfriend and Friend. His experiences range from the comic (surviving his dad’s birth control talk) to the tragic (a harrowing after-hours visit to the morgue).

In a tangle of life and death, love and loyalty, Blake will emerge with a more sharply defined snapshot of himself. (From the author's website)
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I didn't pay attention to this book when it came out last year because I didn't like the cover--shallow, I know. Other people paid attention to it, though. Flash Burnout won the 2010 William C. Morris Award, an ALA award that honors YA debut authors. I looked past the cover after author Stephanie Perkins recommended Flash Burnout in this post.

I now understand why it won an award.

Flash Burnout is a love story: first love, love going well, love gone wrong, parental love, brotherly love, friendship, and self-acceptance. Blake, the main character and first person narrator, has a likable, humorous voice that made me laugh even as bits of Blake's life were falling apart. Blake has a girlfriend he loves and a girl friend and fellow photography student he likes spending time with, and who, after Blake unknowingly snaps a picture of her meth-addict mom, needs him.

Author L.K. Madigan navigates first-relationship awkwardness and the tension between Shannon and Marissa, the two girls in Blake's life, well. Each scene flows neatly into the next; Flash Burnout is well-paced and well-suited for long sittings. I liked all of Madigan's characters--Blake has a great family that includes a Medical Examiner dad who occasionally brings his work home, a no-nonsense mom and a surprisingly awesome older brother, as well as a dog named The Dog Formerly Known as Prince. Half the fun of this novel is watching Blake's family interact and support each other.

Anyway. The drama of Blake's girl issues escalates until it explodes, and Blake does a Bad Thing. I won't say what it is, but Blake's actions and their fallout invite much serious thought about a mature subject. Through it all, though, I never disliked Blake, nor did I feel sorry for him. Madigan walks a tightrope of feelings and ends up with a beautiful, sad (not oh-no-somebody-died sad, but rather realistically bleak), and funny novel. The plot is intense--externally and internally--and but for one awkward sneaking out at night scene, I have no complaints.

I recommend Flash Burnout to readers of contemporary fiction, those who enjoy juicy internal conflict, and anyone looking for a thoughtful, funny read.