#CBR10 Book 79: "Turtles All the Way Down" by John Green

Page count: 304 pages
Audio book length: 7hrs 12 mins

Aza Holmes doesn't have a lot of friends, and her best friend Daisy, a gregarious and outgoing fan fiction writer, sometimes finds her a bit exhausting. This is not surprising, as Aza struggles with anxiety and OCD. When local billionaire Russell Davis Picket goes missing and there is a reward offered for news of his whereabouts, Daisy remembers that Aza knows his son. Daisy orchestrates a scenario so that Aza can reconnect with Davis, who she hasn't seen for a few years.

Aza and Davis met at a camp for children who'd lost parents. Aza's father died, as did Davis' mother. With his father missing, Davis and his younger brother are pretty much orphans. There's a housekeeper who cooks for them, but they are left to their own devices in a huge and lonely house, and when Daisy and Aza suddenly show up, Davis is naturally suspicious about their motives.

The book is told from Aza's perspective, and I found it rather difficult to read on occasion, as Aza's mental illness keeps spiralling out of control more and more as the book progresses. She is terrified of disease, and uses tons of hand sanitizer. She has a tiny wound on her hand that she keeps reopening, while at the same time being super paranoid about infection. She doesn't take her meds like she's supposed to, and as the story progresses, she even begins to drink the hand sanitizer.

While Daisy comes across as an impatient and somewhat oblivious friend on occasion, but I had a lot of sympathy for her. As someone who knows a lot of people with degrees of debilitating mental illness - it can be very frustrating to be the one on the other side.

When promoting this book, John Green admitted that he too struggles with anxiety, which is why it's probably described so very vividly. I listened to the audio book, where the narrator gives Aza's inner thoughts a very commanding tone, making it all the more understandable that she has trouble resisting, even when she's being told to do frankly insane and unhealthy things. It's exhausting and scary to read about, it must be absolute hell on earth to live through. I kept internally yelling at Aza whenever she failed to take her meds. One thing I have realised, knowing many people who suffer from mental illness, is just how important it is to keep taking your meds regularly, and to speak to a doctor if the meds no longer work for you.

I think The Fault in Our Stars is still my favourite John Green book and it probably doesn't help that I was a bit distracted and not necessarily in a good head space when listening to this book. It's a good and important YA book, but Aza's illness just freaked me out too much.

Judging a book by its cover: There's a lot of spiral imagery throughout the novel, so I suppose an orange spiral drawing the eye was a perfectly good design to choose for the otherwise rather plain cover. I suppose John Green doesn't really need elaborate or especially ornate covers, his name is enough to sell bucket loads, especially when he hasn't released a book in years. I still think it's one of the most boring of all of his book covers.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 75: "Looking for Alaska" by John Green

Page count:  263 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Miles Halter doesn't really have any friends in his Florida high school and persuades his parents to send him to the same boarding school in Alabama that his father once attended. When he gets there, he is quickly included in the already established circle of friends including his roommate Chip, usually referred to as the Colonel; the intense and unpredictable Alaska, whom Miles falls in love with pretty much at first sight; and Takumi, who seems like the most sane of the group. After a rather terrifying hazing ritual, the studious Miles (nicknamed Pudge by Alaska) settles in nicely at Culver Creek, barely missing his parents at all.

Miles' hobby is basically memorising famous people's last words and as the Colonel likes memorising pretty much anything from his trusty almanac (countries, capitals, population sizes and so on), they seem to get along fine. In between the regular school days, there are minor adventures, often involving intricate pranks, school intrigue, social engagements, but mainly just the teens hanging out, getting to know one another better or trying to sneak away to get drunk or smoke. From the very beginning, the book is counting down to something, until about two thirds of the way through, we get to "the last day". What happens during this fateful night, irrevocably changes the lives of Miles and his friends, and the rest of Miles' school year involves trying to get some clear answers to what actually happened. What led to the tragic events of that night? Could Miles, Takumi or the Colonel have done something, anything at all, to stop it?

I started reading John Green's novels with his most recent publication, The Fault in Our Stars. With this, his debut novel, I have now finished all his books. It's not difficult to see why he's so popular with YA readers, in my experience, especially teenage girls. In the coming school year, I will try to talk to the librarian at our school to see what we can do to get his books out to the boys, because with the exception of Hazel Grace, all of Green's protagonists are boys, and I think a lot of the boys at my school might like the books if they gave them a chance.

I mentioned in my review for Paper Towns that Green writes wonderful teenage friendships, and this book is no exception. I liked hanging out with Miles and his friends, even though I thought Miles, like Quentin in Paper Towns, got a bit too obsessed with the object of his infatuation, a troubled girl who really had very little real interest in him. I liked the parts of the book counting down better than the last third, that dealt with the aftermath of the "event". Nonetheless, I can see why dealing with the subject matter is important in a YA book and coming to terms with grief, uncertainty and loss is never an easy topic.

If asked to rate John Green's books so far, in order from my least favourite to my favourite, the order would probably go:
5. An Abundance of Katherines (I didn't like the maths all that much, and Colin was a whiner)
4. Looking for Alaska (I just didn't buy Miles and Alaska's nearly star-crossed romance)
3. Paper Towns (Quentin should have been a bit less self-centred and Margo-obsessed)
2. The Fault in Our Stars (Made me feel all the feels, but mostly in a sad way)
1. Will Grayson, Will Grayson (Made me feel all the feels, but mostly in a happy way)

If asked to rate the various cast of characters, I would probably end up rating the books the same way. Now that I've read all of his books, I suppose I shall just have to wait impatiently for John Green to publish something new.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 73: "Paper Towns" by John Green

Page count: 305 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Quentin "Q" Jacobsen is a fairly average, if overly anxious teenager. He has lived next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman for most of his life, and been in love with her for as long as he can remember. Margo is one of the most popular girls in school, has a nearly legendary reputation. Of course, she also barely seems to know that Quentin or his friends Ben and Radar exist, but that doesn't stop Quentin from dreaming of her from afar. So when Margo climbs in his bedroom window one evening, less than a month from their high school graduation, saying she needs his help to enact an elaborate revenge plan, he feels compelled to assist her.

Quentin ends the evening exhausted, but exhilarated, convinced that when he arrives at school the next day, everything will be different and for his last month in school, Margo's actually going to be part of his circle of friends. But Margo never does return to school and initially appears to have disappeared without a trace. Her parents are at their wits' end and pretty much threaten to disown her. Quentin becomes obsessed with the idea that she's left clues before she disappeared, and that she wants someone to find her. As Quentin continues to search for Margo, enlisting the aid of his and her friends, they discover that Margo was a lot more secretive and mysterious than any of them expected. As they proceed on their quest for the lost girl, while adjusting to the end of high school and anticipating the future, there are arguments and adventure, revelations and an epic road trip.

When I realised that the film adaptation of Paper Towns was going to be in cinemas here soon, I decided that I'd best get round to reading the book that had been on my shelf for over a year. For a very long time, I was pretty sure that this was merely an ok book, until the last third or so, when Quentin and three others race across the country on an epic road trip to possibly find Margo before she disappears forever. The book is divided into three parts. There's the introduction, where Quentin explains about his friends and his life-long crush on Margo Roth Spiegelman. This part culminates in the audacious revenge plot Margo has designed to get back at those who betrayed and wronged her. It's quite clearly the greatest night of Q's life so far.

Then there is the extremely long middle bit, where Q becomes obsessed with Margo's disappearance and becomes convinced that she left HIM a whole load of clues, wanting him to find her. While he comes to realise fairly quickly that the Margo of his imagination is an idealised Manic Pixie Dream Girl, he entirely give up on the dream that everything will work itself out if and when he just finds her again. If he succeeds in completing his quest, like the knight in shining armour he seems to imagine himself as, he will be rewarded with the hand of the fair princess. I found Quentin really rather tedious in this part, and if it hadn't been for the fact that his friends, and even Margo's friend Lacey, repeatedly call him on his unhealthy fixation and continue to be delightful and entertaining, I possibly stopped reading. I love the way John Green writes teenage friendship, but Quentin really annoyed me.

As I already mentioned, the final third where they have to travel in a minivan for nearly twenty-four hours, with barely any stops, was absolutely my favourite part. While Quentin's last month of high school is pretty much consumed with his need to locate Margo, his two best friends Radar and Ben are having a rather different experience, discovering that interacting with and actually talking to girls instead of just dreaming about them can be a successful strategy if you want a girlfriend. Like me, they get pretty fed up with Q's behaviour, but unlike me, they've been friends with him for years, and as they're good guys, they forgive him his selfishness and even help him. As they look for, and go on a cross-country drive to locate Margo, the reader also discovers the many different ways in which Margo appeared to the people in her life, with Green cleverly deconstructing the afore-mentioned MPDG idea. Tomorrow, I have a chance to see the film version of the book in a preview screening (the trailer looks promising) and if they've adapted the book well (and hopefully shortened the middle bit a LOT), the film may actually turn out more entertaining than the book. The final third of the book, and Q's friends were fun enough that I will give the book 4 stars, but that fourth star is dangerously tenuous.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 26: "Will Grayson, Will Grayson" by David Levithan and John Green

Page count: 308 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer! I was given a copy of this through NetGalley in return for a fair and unbiased review. Honesty compels me to admit that I already owned the book when I requested it, I figured being given a copy would motivate me into reading it and reviewing it more quickly.

This book tells the story of two teenage boys, both named Will Grayson. They have alternating points-of-view chapters, one written by John Green, one by David Levithan. I shall call John Green's teenager Will 1.0 and David Levithan's teenager Will 2.0. Otherwise it'll just get real confusing.

Will 1.0 is your average, not very popular teenager. His best friend, the physically enormous, but ironically nicknamed "Tiny" Cooper, has nearly a thousand Facebook friends and is the centre of attention wherever he goes. He's also extremely gay, falls in love with someone new approximately twice a week and is so secure in his identity that he wants the school to fund a musical he's written about his own life. He also intends to choreograph, direct, stage-manage and in general do everything of importance connected to the musical, initially named "Tiny Dancer". Will 1.0 pretty much has two rules. 1) Try not to care to much about anything. 2) Keep your mouth shut. His apathetic attitude to the world is completely at odds with that of Tiny, who feels passionate about most things. Tiny is trying to set Will 1.0 up with Jane, the only other straight member of their schools gay-straight alliance. Will 1.0 likes Jane, but is also very taken with the idea of just having an unrequited crush on her, as that seems easier and a lot less likely to lead to heart ache.

Will 2.0 had a hard time winning me over, because his chapters were written entirely in lower case. as in he didn't use any capitals at all. everything is written like this, even the names of other characters, like his one and only friend maura, and it drove me UP THE WALL. See how useful capitals can be? Will 2.0 is a loner, who lives alone with his mother and appears to be quite heavily medicated for depression. It's never specified exactly what manner of mental instability, but as the book goes on, he's clearly not one of these, easily cured, just a bit down individuals. Will 2.0 has been chatting online with this guy, Isaac, for about a year, and hasn't admitted to anyone, least of all Maura, who seems extremely eager that he share all his deep inner pain with her, that he's gay. One day, Isaac suggests that the two meet up, and this is what leads to the two Will Graysons actually meeting in person.

Due to reasons I don't want to spoil, Isaac never turns up, but Will 2.0 meets Will 1.0 and they are both amazed and a bit baffled that they share a name. As Will 2.0 is quite upset after learning the truth about Isaac, Will 1.0 introduces him to Tiny, and soon Will 2.0 is not only openly gay at school, but has a larger than life boyfriend, who is very busy trying to get everything ready for the opening of his musical. Tiny's relationship with Will 2.0 makes him realise that his master work can't just be the Tiny Cooper story, it has to have a message. It needs to be mean something. He starts rewriting it, turning it into "Hold Me Closer" and in the process of being in love and making his musical happen, seems to forget all about his best friend, who's going through some emotional turmoil of his own.

The first quarter to a third or so of the book, before the two Will Graysons meet, was a bit slow, and I was unsure what everyone online was so enthusiastic about. The convoluted circumstances leading to the two meeting, and the immediate aftermath is when the book sunk its hooks into me, and after that, I had trouble putting the book down. Initially, Will 1.0 seemed the most likable and approachable of the two, but as the book goes on, Will 2.0 won me over more and more. They are both teenage boys, of course, prone to being self-centred, making all manner of dumb choices, not really great at expressing themselves and altogether quite exasperating at times. Sometimes I wanted to shake them, and sometimes I wanted to hug them. I very much appreciate the honest way in which Will 2.0's mental problems was handled. There's a lot of darkness in his life, and it was good to see that to an extent, he just needed to "snap out of it" a bit, he wasn't going to be magically cured by the power of love.

Tiny Cooper is a force of nature and I kept seeing Damian from Mean Girls in my mind's eye in every scene he was in. Unlike Damien, Tiny isn't at all "almost too gay to function", he's just gay enough. Openly gay since primary school, Tiny and Will 1.0's friendship is a long and loyal one and while at first, Tiny seemed as if he could be quite exhausting, being best friends with someone as non-committal and apathetic as Will 1.0 must also not be the easiest. Tiny wants what is best for everyone, and his match-making efforts to get Jane and Will 1.0 together are adorable. I desperately want this to be made into a movie, just so I can see the glory that is "Hold Me Closer" actually staged and performed. It's clearly the best high school musical ever featured in a YA book.

Once the book sank its figurative hooks in me, I didn't really want to put it down. I read it during every free second of the day and cursed the pile of correction work I had to complete before I could finish it. It made me laugh, it made me genuinely feel for the characters and I wish that I had a friend like Tiny Cooper, gay or straight, in my life to make it a better place. This is my second encounter with John Green's writing (after he slayed me with The Fault in Our Stars). Reading Will Grayson, Will Grayson has made me decide that I need to read all his other YA books too. I've never read anything by David Levithan before, but as long as he actually doesn't make it a habit to never use capitalisation in his other books, I will absolutely be checking out more of his books now too.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR 4 Book 20: "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green

Page count: 336 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Date begun: February 23rd, 2012
Date finished: February 24th, 2012

Hazel is 16. She has incurable cancer, so knows that it's only a matter of time before she dies, but thanks to some miracle drug, she's currently doing fairly ok, as long as she drags a tank of oxygen around with her at all times. Her mother spends all her time taking care of her, and worrying, and making sure she goes to Cancer Support Group to battle her quite-natural depression about having cancer and knowing she's going to die young. Hazel thinks Support Group is a big waste of time, until one day, she meets Augustus Waters there. Augustus is 17 and lost his leg to osteosarcoma. As Hazel says: "Osteosarcoma sometimes takes a limb to check you out. Then if it likes you, it takes the rest".

Augustus is handsome and charming and witty and instantly taken with Hazel, comparing her to a mid-2000s Natalie Portman (and even with this description, I adored her). He agrees that Support Group is dreadful, and they quickly spark up a friendship that starts turning into something more, even though Hazel wants to distance herself from everyone, afraid of becoming a "grenade", blowing the lives of those around her to pieces when she inevitably dies, yet Augustus tenaciously refuses to keep his distance. They discuss films, games, life, poetry, art, and especially bond over Hazel's favourite book, An Imperial Affliction by Peter van Houten. The book, also about a teenage girl with cancer, ends mid-sentence, and both Hazel and Augustus become obsessed with finding out what happened to the other characters in the book after it ended. They correspond with the author by e-mail, but he refuses to tell them unless they talk to him in person. He lives in Amsterdam.

Now, Hazel used her dying Wish (from the Make a Wish Foundation) on Disney World before the miracle drug made her somewhat better, but Augustus still has his. This is their chance to go to Amsterdam and talk to the author of their favourite book, getting some kind of closure before Hazel's life takes an inevitable downturn.

I'm convinced The Fault in Our Stars will be among the best books I read this year, even though it's only February, mainly because it's one of the best books I've read in years. I bookmarked a dozen pages or so just for the amazingly quotable lines. The book made me laugh out loud on public transport, getting me puzzled looks from fellow commuters. It made me sob uncontrollably on the couch, freaking out my cats. If you make it to the end of this book without both laughing and at least getting teary eyed, you are some sort of unfeeling machine. It's an amazing book, and while the protagonists are kids with cancer (or recovering from cancer), the horrible, deadly disease is not the focal point of the book at all.

This is one of those young adult books that I desperately wish had been around when I was actually a teenager, because I would have killed to get my hands on it. Hazel and Augustus are amazing kids to read about, and it breaks your heart that their love is so star-crossed. She's dying, he's recovering. You know it's all going to end in tears, but you keep turning the pages because you can't not. You have to find out what happens next. This is going to be one of those books I gift to people in years to come, just to make sure I can talk to them about it. Now I just have to track down John Green's back catalogue of books, to see if they're as amazing as this one.