Book Review: John Green – “An Abundance Of Katherines”

When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton’s type is girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy–loving best friend riding shotgun—but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl. Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to surprising and heart-changing conclusions in this ingeniously layered comic novel about reinventing oneself. (Source: amazon.com)

Alright, so my first thought about this book: “WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST READ?!” I found it pretty hard to read myself into this story, way more difficult than into any other book I’ve ever read. First of all, this is the only book of all the ones I’ve read of John Green that does NOT have a first-person narrator – which was weird at first, if you are used to it after 4 books. The second thing that bugged me from the beginning to the end is split up in two parts:

1. Footnotes. I had no idea this book would be built up like that. For instance, Colin’s best friend is an arabian guy called Hassan. Now, it can’t be avoided to throw in the one or other arabic word, which, of course, has to be explained. That was not my personal problem, because I have to admit, it’s nice to have them explained, to learn some words of a language that is so foreign to you. The thing is: throughout the story there are at least three footnotes in each chapter, mostly mathematical, and the moment you see them, you have the actual intention to memorize them until the end…but when you reached said end of the chapter, you have basically forgotten what the footnote is explaining (and turning back the pages is already annoying when I’m reading a normal book, but as a matter of fact, I read this particular one on my Kindle, so turning back was no option for me).

2. Math. Urgh. I mean, I am not at all into math. In fact, I absolutely despise it. That may be because I have no clue whatsoever about any of that subject matter, never have and never will, but I also think it’s one of the most annoying things human kind has ever invented. And the fact that John Green himself only had a C- in Pre-Calc makes me wondering even more what the hell he was thinking putting all these mathematical parts into the story (not to mention the author’s note at the end of the book that I skipped after 4 pages because I understood Jack Squad).

If you leave these two factors out, there’s still potential in the book. It’s nice to accompany nerdy, not self-conscious Colin on his road trip to find himself and the answer to all his problems – which of course, you’ll never find. What I learned throughout reading is that no matter how much you try to find answers to your current problems, on your way to find those answers, there will be more problems/questions that you want to solve; therefor, it’s an endless journey during which it’s easy to forget who you are, and what really matters. Maybe with this story, John Green has sent out a moral to everyone who has ever had their heart broken (which, basically, everyone has, hands down). And for the first time in all the 4 books I’ve read of him so far, I got a Happy End, which was nice for a change.

I have to admit, the characters did not leave me in so much awe as all the other characters in John Green’s stories, except for Lindsey Lee Wells, the female “heroine”. Once again, a girl is the star, a fierce, funny and “She’s-going-to-suck-you-in-no-matter-what-you-do”-kind of person who I, personally, warmed up to instantly. Just as I did with Hassan, Colin’s best friend, although to me, he seemed a bit flat compared to earlier best friend characters, like Ben Starling in “Paper Towns” or even Isaac, Augustus Waters’ best friend in “The Fault In Our Stars”. He was funny, no question, but for me, something was missing about his character, a certain edge that I admire so much about every other of John Green’s best friend characters.

All in all, from all the novels by John Green I know so far, this is the weakest one, although not a bad one. I would still recommend it for the sake of the reader maybe finding some things out about themselves, especially if they’re currently on a journey through a break-up or just a simple “breaking-heart-syndrome”. And for all the fans of his novels, I think it is a must-read.

Book Review: John Green – “Paper Towns”

Who is the real Margo? Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs into his life – dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge – he follows. After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. She has disappeared. Q soon learns that there are clues in her disappearance . . . and they are for him. Trailing Margo’s disconnected path across the USA, the closer Q gets, the less sure he is of who he is looking for... (Source: amazon.com)

I am going to be honest here: after I had read “The Fault In Our Stars” (read my review for it here), – I doubted I’d ever read another John Green book again. Not because I didn’t like it or because it wasn’t good – because it was good, it was amazing, actually, but normally I don’t read books like that, and it didn’t leave me as satisfied as books usually do. But somehow, while browsing through amazon, I came across “Paper Towns”. And after reading the story description, I decided to give John Green another go.

And I am so happy I did.

This book is kind of similar to “The Fault In Our Stars”, considering the main character, Margo Roth Spiegelman. She’s badass. There’s no other way to put it. While reading this book, I liked her from the first second she was mentioned – as a 9-year old, adventure-loving, non-scared little girl that drags her best friend, who is the exact opposite of her, into her weird and adventurous discoveries. As a reader, you just can’t help but helplessly admire that little girl that grows into an 18-year old woman, only a few months away from her High-School graduation, and still badass. I caught myself thinking about how much I would’ve loved to be like her, to grow into someone like her, with so many mysteries about her and an fearless attitude of pure strength. Strong-Minded. It sounds weird, but Margo Roth Spiegelman embodies everything that possibly alot of readers wish to be, too – me included.
But apart from the fact that Margo is one of the best characters that I have ever read about without her being a “physical” part of the story, all the other characters are nonetheless perfectly written:

Quentin Jacobsen
He is the actual main character, and Margo’s best friend when they are kids. One day, 9 years after they discovered a dead body in a park not afar from where they live, she shows up on his windowsill in the middle of the night and takes him onto an adventure of revenge that will change his life forever – and will mark the best night of his entire life. Quentin (or Q, how he’s often named by his friends) is such a lovable character; he’s in love with Margo from the get go, and from the moment she disappears, becoming yet another mystery, his everyday life evolves around finding her, finding out who she really is. He is determined to put everything into his search, even if it means almost losing his best friend and missing out on his graduation. It’s easy to feel sympathy for him, whatever he does – he’s the nice boy next door that you just can’t help but fall for.

Ben Starling
Ben is Quentin’s best friend – and god, from all the characters in this book, I could and can never get enough of him. He’s the most hilarious and sympathetic character I have ever had the pleasure to read about, without any doubt. He’s best described as the poor dork at High School that doesn’t have a lot of friends, but he’s perfectly happy in his own little world, and his nerdy, funny character makes you smile whenever you hear his name. There is one point in the book – in the last of the three parts, – where I almost laughed out loud on the bus (I’m not going to spoil it for anybody here, I’m just going to say “pee situation in the car” – utterly hilarious), and for me, that is one of the best moments of him in the entire book, although I can’t really picture anything that does not strike me as awesome about him. He’s quick-witted, sarcastic, and he handles every situation the way that I personally, would love to be able to handle. He’s that one friend that you just need in your life to get through (High) School, that one friend that makes your life bearable and worth living. So if it’s possible to be in love with a fictional character, then I am now in love with Mr. Ben Starling.

Radar
Radar is the other best friend of Quentin, an Afro-American boy with parents who are obsessed with collecting Black Santas. Radar is kind of the “brain” of the group, he runs an internet knowledge thing called “Omnictionary”, and basically, he knows a bit about everything. Plus, he’s kind of what keeps the friends together, even when there are bumps in the road (e.g. when Quentin feels let down by Ben due to him having a girlfriend). He’s also the one that helps Quentin piece together all the clues that he has to face on his quest to find Margo and despite all the difficulties, he never seems to lose his positive energy, something I really admired through every chapter. He’s definitely the kind of friend someone like Quentin and Ben need in their life: a grown-up, yet still grounded and somewhat “young at heart” young man.

I have to say: for me, the book never really loses its pace, although you would expect that from the way the story developes; in part one, the reader is first introduced to Margo and Quentin and is led into the night that Margo “kidnaps” Quentin for her weird revenge spree, the second part is based on the moment that Margo disappears and Quentin dedicates his life to her safe return home, and the third part describes the road trip of the friends that lead to the ultimate revelation.
Although you might think that the 2nd part can be the one that is the dullest of all, because, basically, all that’s happening is leading Quentin everywhere and nowhere. It can be easy to lose yourself in the storyline, you can get easily annoyed by thinking “He finally found a clue to her! Now he is finally going to find her!” only to then being disappointed again. But for me, that was even more of a reason to keep reading, because I felt like the disappointments that Quentin felt whenever he realized he wasn’t closer to finding Margo than he had been before, was my disappointment. I felt like I was Quentin, because I could easily empathize with him – which is only one of many reasons why this book is the perfect example of modern literature.

My favourite part – without a doubt, – was definitely the third part, which is called “The Vessel”, where the friends start their road trip. I think I have never grinned so much at every single chapter, and neither did I ever have so many difficulties to not laugh out loud at what I was reading. For me, reading something and instantly having the situation infront of your inner eye, is beautiful (although I have never been in the USA, neither have I ever been on a road trip of 21 hours), and it makes the story so much more vivid than it already is.

The end was something I did not expect in the way it happened. I will not spoil anything for anyone here, because honestly, I think everyone should read this book for him/herself. But what I’m going to say is this: the end made me highly emotional. I barely ever cry over a story/book (mostly due to the fact that I always read thriller or horror books, I guess). But right now, I am a somewhat emotional wreck, because I don’t even know how I actually feel about the end. In some way, it’s the best ending that, in my opinion, the author could and should have come up with. In its own way, it’s absolutely perfect.

And for me, that is enough to give this book a special place in my heart. John Green now definitely has me as a fan among his readers. “Paper Towns” is one utterly beautiful piece of literature.

P.S. Please make Ben Starling a real life person that lives next door to me and is single. Thank you.

Book Review: John Green – “The Fault In Our Stars”

This is going to be a very different review of the book than my wonderful friend Laura – on who’s behalf I bought and read it, – did on her blog. You can read it here http://mysticmonkey86.wordpress.com/2014/02/15/wow/. It’s a wonderful review of hers, trust me.

Anyway, back to the book. I totally agree with Laura: the book is cruel. It’s excruciatingly gruesome, reading about a sixteen-year-old girl named Hazel that is supposed to have her entire life infront of her but has to face the fact that it will be way shorter than expected every day because she’s been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. The Support Group her parents put her into is never more than a dull experience that she goes through with her mind drifting somewhere else. To everyone, she appears as heroic, a fighter, because she lived already three years longer than her doctors ever thought she would, thanks to oxygen tanks and strong meds.

Then her life changes when she meets Augustus Waters at one of these Support Group meetings.

Just as Laura, the moment he shows up in the book, I am in total awe for him. He’s witty, never gets tired of snippy comments, goes through life with literally living by the motto “Live everydays as if it would be your last”. And that is one of the things I have the highest respect for. He shows Hazel how much life still has to offer even when you’re terminally ill, I’d go so far as to say that he shows her the stars without having to ride up to the sky, if that makes sense. He makes me want to have someone like that in my life, who doesn’t care who somebody is, what they look like, if they’re sick or healthy, someone who just takes another person the way they are, no questions asked. My favourite part therefor is – without a doubt, – the one where he lets his best friend Isaac do something so essentially freeing (at least in my opinion) and, at the same time, selfless, while talking to Hazel as if nothing could be bothering him, that you have no other option than to fall for him head over heels (if he wasn’t a fictional character, of course). I loved that part. Deeply.

What I don’t share with Laura is the fact how much this book touched me deep inside. Yes, I was sitting on the tram to work with my jaw literally wide open when I got to the part where something is revealed that I would’ve never expected to happen at all. Yes, I had to pull myself together to not start crying in public. And yes, it was the cruelest turn I would have imagined in a book where I thought there couldn’t lie any surprises for me. From that page on, I couldn’t stop reading, and I read through the rest of the book like there was no tomorrow.

But fact also is: I didn’t really like the end. I mean…John Green makes such a big fuss about Hazel’s favourite book that ends just midsentence, with so many questions still unanswered…and in some way, that’s exactly what he does to his own book. I still have questions. And it bugs me. It might be a stroke of genius, but still. It bugs me.

Plus…call me cold-hearted, unemotional or whatever, but the book just didn’t change me. I say it again, it’s cruel to read about such an intense subject, it really is, but I’m not sitting here now, thinking how short life is. Basically, because I do that all day. There is nothing I fear more than dying, and I’m fighting the thought of it every single day to the hardest. I’m not seeing the beauty in everything now, I live my life exactly the way I did before.

I admire the talent John Green has proven with this book, and I understand why it has become such a best seller – because it is. But for me, no matter how heart-wrenching, touching and impressing it was…I read better ones. Who knows, maybe it’s just because I normally read completely different kind of books.  Maybe I just don’t get the book. Maybe I just don’t get the message it carries with it. Maybe I’m just amazingly stupid.

But what I do think is: John Green has written about one of the most delicate subjects mankind knows, and he has done it well. Very well. His writing skill is amazing, and the way he’s presented the characters to the reader is stunning. He deserves all the praise he has ever gotten and will ever get for this novel.

He didn’t totally reach me with it, but that does not, in any way, diminish his talent. Go read the book for yourself, make up your own mind and decide how you feel about it. Because this is the most beautiful thing about books: everyone has a different view of them, everyone sees something different in them, decides for themselves the effect is has on them.

And sometimes, they can even change lives. Just as Augustus did change Hazel’s life.