Blogger Book Club March Read: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Title: The Fault in Our Stars
Author: John Green
Rating: *****
ISBN: 0525478817
Genre: Fiction - Young Adult - Romance - Contemporary
Summary: From Goodreads: "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 what a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten."

Thoughts: I have a very hard time coming up with something new and unique to say about this book. It is heart-wrenching, but beautifully honest. Sure, you could look at some of Augustus and Hazel's conversations as rambling, repetitive, and juvenile, but guys, think about their ages. Think about what else they are going through and how they are handling it. I found it easy to forgive that might have been perceived as annoying in other books, because I saw so much wit and beauty in the rest of their stories.

I don't know if you know the whole story, I knew the whole story going in, and I really did not want to read this one. But I decided it would be good for me to step out and challenge myself, and I am so glad that I did.

This book will challenge you. It will probably make you cry. I understand that John Green took some liberties with the depiction of cancer (making up the drug that Hazel was taking), but I also felt as if he accurately described what it was like to have cancer and to be a family stricken by that reality. I came away from the book with more sympathy and more understanding for what so many people go through. I also came away so thankful that I am not stricken by cancer and that I can live a life with an undisclosed ending.

Sometimes we need a couple flawed heroes to show us what life is really about.

Favorite Quote(s): (Oh my gosh, guys, picking out favorite quotes is making me tear up again. This book! It gets inside of you!)

"I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once."

"My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations."

"You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world...but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices."

"Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you."

"You gave me forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful."

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Discussion Questions: (Please note, though I do my best to keep spoilers out of my reviews, discussion questions are by nature for people who have read the book and may contain spoilers. Read them at your own risk! Also, if you are responding to one of the discussion questions in the comments below, please put SPOILERS at the beginning of any portions of your comment that might ruin the book for other interested parties. Thank you!)

- Augustus' cigarette. What did you all think of this symbol that he carried around? Did you cry when Hazel had to come find him (and call the ambulance) at the gas station because he was trying so hard to take control again and get himself a new pack of cigarettes? I know this annoys some people, but I felt that Augustus' unlit cigarette was Augustus doing exactly what the book kept saying - controlling the killing thing. He could make life worse for himself, he could make his body deteriorate faster, but instead he holds it in his mouth and mocks the killing machine - feeling powerful when everything around him says he's weak.

- What did you think about the way the book ended? How we never get to know for sure the rest of Hazel's story?

- What did you think of Augustus' death being Hazel's 10? I cried. Loss is such a powerful thing - it's hard to feel any worse than you feel when you loose something - I was just amazed that for someone so young she realized so much.

- What do you think about the movie that's coming out? Will you go see it? I won't. The actors they chose just aren't my interpretations of Hazel and Augustus, and I'd rather stick with the ones I fell in love with.

- What did you think of Augustus' desire to do something big or to die an epic death?

- What did you think about the idea that the universe wants to be noticed? Do you think the world works that way?

- What did you think about Hazel's desire to not be a grenade? Is that even possible?

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Do you like reading books that make you cry? What are some other beautiful tear-jerkers I should look in to?

-Faye

Review: The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

Title: The Interestings
Author: Meg Wolitzer
Rating: **
ISBN: 1594488398
Genre: Fiction - Adult - Contemporary
Summary: From Goodreads: "The summer Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. In The Interestings, Wolitzer follows these characters from the height of youth through middle age, as their talents, fortunes, and degrees of satisfaction diverge.

The kind of creativity that is rewarded at age fifteen is not always enough to propel someone through life at age thirty; not everyone can sustain, in adulthood, what seemed so special in adolescence. Jules Jacobson, an aspiring comic actress, eventually resigns herself to a more practical occupation and lifestyle. Her friend Jonah, a gifted musician, stops playing the guitar and becomes and engineer. But Ethan and Ash, Jules' now-married best friends, become shockingly successful - true to their initial artistic dreams, with the wealth and access that allow those dreams to keep expanding. The friendships endure and even prosper, but also underscore the differences in their fates, in what their talents have become and shapes their lives have taken.

Wide in scope, ambitious, and populated by complex characters who come together and apart in a changing New York City, The Interestings explores the meaning of talent; the nature of envy; the roles of class, art, money, and power; and how all of it can shift and tilt precipitously over the course of a friendship and a life."

Thoughts: I did not enjoy this book. I did not exactly hate it, but when I turned the last page I thought, "That was it? I went through all of that for this?" I must admit I felt a little betrayed. This book has been raved over (and equally despised), but I thought surely I would at least fall in to the middle segment; the segment that didn't love it or hate it.

I was pretty close to hating it.

I appreciated how frankly honest the characters were. I appreciated that they were human and struggled with very human things. I struggled with Jules in thinking that maybe Ash was just a little too perfect - though that did make Jules a little more relate-able.

I think the biggest thing for me was that I felt as if Wolitzer was trying to tackle too many ideas on too few pages and without any distinct rises and falls to break the journey up a bit. It was too much like real life, therefore it was too hard to fully focus on the directions she was trying to pull her readers in. I think if the whole book had primarily focused on Jules' jealousy I would have been able to appreciate what she was going for better. Instead, I felt like the "big epiphany" was incredibly small and that the book just rushed to a close as soon as it happened - the reader wasn't even left with enough information to know if the "epiphany" had actually occurred so that they could imagine what happened after the last page.

The book was a complete let down to me, regardless of Wolitzer's witty moments and interesting vocabulary. It felt flat at the end, and I felt betrayed as the reader.

Favorite Quote(s):
"Part of the beauty of love was that you didn't need to explain it to anyone else. You could refuse to explain. With love, apparently you didn't necessarily feel the need to explain anything at all."

"...he's infuriated that his e-reader allows him to only know the percentage of a book he's read, not the number of pages. This, he thinks, is 92 percent stupid."

"She recognized that this is how friendships begin: one person reveals a moment of strangeness, and the other person decides just to listen and not exploit it."

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Discussion Questions: (Please note, though I do my best to keep spoilers out of my reviews, discussion questions are by nature for people who have read the book and may contain spoilers. Read them at your own risk! Also, if you are responding to one of the discussion questions in the comments below, please put SPOILERS at the beginning of any portions of your comment that might ruin the book for other interested parties. Thank you!)

- What did you think of Jules' (originally Julie) name change? Did it have a greater significance to the book than being the change that allowed her to be accepted in to the group? Did the name change actually change Jules in any way?

- There was a huge emphasis, at least on Jules' part, on the importance of class. Is there such a thing as a higher and lower class? Do classes only exist to those who actually care or is it a widespread idea that permeates everyone and everywhere?

- Jules' jealousy. What did you think about the way she handled this and how deeply it affected her? I must say, this was the one part of the book that I actually felt like was true - at least for me. I could relate to Jules and her feelings, they were so human and raw, even if at times it did feel a bit...obsessive, perhaps.

- Goodman Wolf. What did you think about the fact that he went from so good looking to someone so ugly, both inside and out? Did you think it was poetic justice? What did you think about the way his family treated his whole situation? That was a moral dilemma that plagued me through a lot of the book.

- What did you think about how Ash chose to handle Goodman's situation in regards to Ethan? Does it say anything about Ethan and Ash's relationship that she felt like she couldn't tell him? What about what happened to their relationship when it all came out?

- What did you think about how Ethan continued to have feelings for Jules throughout the entire book even though he was with Ash and Jules was married to Dennis?

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Have you read any of Ms. Wolitzer's other novels? How do you think that they compare to The Interestings?

- Faye