How can i review a book that has been reviewed and praised and criticized a million times?
I'll start with so much honesty. I will spoil a lot-- thinking you read this already.
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.
I am not the biggest John Green fan. I don't like much his 'Looking for Alaska' book. I am not a nerdfighter, just a nerd. :) I didn't cry but with teary eyes at the end of the book. I love Augustus. I like Isaac. Hazel is beautiful and lovely. Sometimes tho, I didn't recognized her. I was weird-ed out of her girly-flirty tantrums in that scene with Augustus when they were watching Isaac kissing Monica.
The last paragraph of the book hit me so hard. I think it was the sweetest.
It started really light and easy to read. I had snorts and laughs. Honestly, I like the humor of the book more than the crying part. It wasn't the perfect book for me, I totally get the hype tho. I think, John Green's best in building up recognizable special and smart characters with deep monologues quotable in every place that can be writable. He is very consistent about writing those characters. Tho I felt like, his characters were always trying to move readers. The first few chapters threaded so light and I was in the verge of 'how will this get so much deep and tragic'-part where people always gave advises to keep my tissues beside me. Because it started so flat and summery. I felt like a little Chick Lit vibe So.. that's why.. I haven't cried like a "Tuesday with Morrie"-type of weeping. Which is by the way, a little nostalgic.. because The Okay-Okay scene was similiar to that last part of Morrie and his student convo in that book. I totally remembered it. Because.. i cried a lot that time. So.. seeing some people as if they were mesmerized of the book dialogue, puzzles me. It's not that original--again, for me.
Some scenes are exceptionally fantastic. Some were written pretentiously and overly dramatic. Some were over flowery. Yes, I am talking about the 'scrambled eggs' part. I love the original and made-up poems in the story. Very raw.
I won't tell 'I fear oblivion'. I fear death, I fear spiders, I fear ghosts. It's not a monologue, I can't beautify words, especially those things that I fear. I can't quote Shakespeare. With Cancer or not, I can't create poems in a flick of a finger, or remember a sonnet line from a lot of Sonnets. I can't emotionally tell a sentence enough to be quoted in every websites there is. Some of the book's dialogues are odd. It was like, words were picked from a dictionary, and with non-usable adjectives.. was put together to excite and create a weird evangelical zeal just so it's quotable. (Isnorts).
I like books written so simple and raw.
I'll just give a quote from the book that I like:
“I'm in love with you," he said quietly."Augustus," I said."I am," he said. He was staring at me, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you.”
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Finishing this up.. I'll tell you something. Damn guys, remember.. you are a smart reader. Don't let others influenced what you want or wanted to read. Don't pretend you like things others said they love. It's okay to do not like books others pretend to love. It's okay to not get affected. It's okay to feel flat and awkward and it doesn't mean you aren't smart if you don't get it. You have taste. You have your likes. Don't judge books by reviews, by promotions and by fame. Butt in chair and read. It's up to you.
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this girl reading
