Leni Zumas's writing crackles. Her books are sharp, bleak, funny, and possibly dangerous. When her collection of short stories, Farewell Navigator,...
Continue »
Among all the vampires, apocalypses, and plagues John Green's books are always a breath of fresh air. His stories are smart, funny, sad, and utterly true about the world. His characters may not be the average Joe or Jane, but they have something so human at their heart that it impossible to not feel the emotional roller coaster and catharsis of their stories. With Looking for Alaska John took us somewhere heart-heartrendingly sad with teenager suicide. In An Abundance of Katherines we met the charismatic math prodigy searching for love, and finding it in the most unusual of places. In Paper Towns we go on a daring road trip through adventure and love. In Will Grayson, Will Grayson John partnered with David Levithan to bring us the story of two boys trying to find their way in the world and make an identity for themselves. Now in The Fault in Our Stars we meet Hazel Grace and August Waters: teenagers with cancer.
From the very opening lines we see immediately that Hazel is darkly sarcastic and deeply afraid. She is sixteen years old and her cancer is slowly killing her. She knows she wants more out of life, but is resigned to the fact that she will not get it. Estranged from her old friends by her disease, she hides in her room re-reading her favorite book over and over again. The book is like Hazel: it is the story of a girl who could have a brilliant future, but her dreams are cut dramatically short (the book literally has no conclusive ending) by cancer. But Hazel's mother is not content to see her daughter waste away what is left of her life inside four walls: so Hazel ends up reluctantly joining a Support Group for teens with cancer. And that is where she meets Augustus Waters.
He is beautiful and athletic and funny and smart, and missing a leg from a surgery that saved his life and put him in remission several years before. Hazel is drawn to him because of his energy, his beauty, and the fact that he is instantly interested in her. Within their first day they are fast friends, with the stirrings of something more. Their romance is not love at first sight--at least not for Hazel--and it is not easy. Two teenagers brought low by the betrayal of their bodies can never laugh as easy as those of us who will never understand that pain. But they find the good and the laughter amid all the struggle.
As you would expect in a book like this, someone dies. I won't say who, because that ruins the story, but it's no spoiler to say that someone does. The real resonance of this story wouldn't exist without the death of one of the characters. While it might be a great dream/fantasy to read about two kids with cancer who miraculously beat it and go on to live long happy lives, that is not John Green's intention. He doesn't want to tell fantasies. He also isn't telling the hard, plain truth. His stories fall somewhere in the middle--in that place where dreams and reality meet to make us laugh and cry all at once. Even with death and reality looming over their shoulders we cheer for Hazel and Augustus until the very end.
So many nay-sayers of young adult fiction would argue that books for teens aren't worth reading because they have no deeper meaning. John Green's books (and so many other fantastic YA authors) blow those people away. The story of Hazel and Augustus is one of facing death, of finding your place in the universe, of wondering what you think about God and the afterlife, of trying to love someone even knowing that one of you will lost the other sooner than later, of trying to find meaning in the chaos.
The Fault in Our Stars will be a must-read this year for young adult readers, and readers of any age. It is one of those stories that will touch your heart in unexpected ways, and stick with you long after you have turned the last page.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(1 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)
Blue Thread is the story of Miriam Josefson. She lives in 1912 Portland, OR at the height of the women's suffrage movement. Her father owns a printing shop, which Miriam loves to visit and hopes one day to run. But her father is determined to have Miriam marry well and live life as a proper lady. It seems that no matter how hard Miriam tries, she will not sway her father. Then fate intervenes. One day a mysterious girl named Serakh appears to Miriam and tells her that her great-grandmother's prayer shawl is special: it has the power to transport Miriam through time. With the touch of the blue threads on the shawl Miriam finds herself in biblical times, in the midst of another struggle for women's rights, and her actions and decisions could change the lives of many. Alternating between journeys to the past and struggles in the present, Miriam's story is one of perseverance, dreams, and the power of one woman to change the world.
What I loved about Blue Thread was Miriam. She is headstrong and confident, but still learning what it means to be a woman in her world. She is sixteen, at the crux of becoming a woman, but still held in the thralls of childhood by her parents. Struggling to free herself from sexist prejudices and societal expectations, Miriam breaks all the rules in her effort to build a place for herself in what could be a new world. But amid all her bravery she is still afraid: afraid of her father and angering him (because despite his flaws she does love him), afraid that one wrong word will doom her friends in ancient times, afraid that the suffrage movement will fail, afraid that she will not get to live in the future that she wants to. Her strength and her flaws are what makes Miriam feel so alive. Even though she lived a hundred years ago, through her actions and dreams she is just like any teenager today, wishing for a better world.
The world and story that Feldman built is lush and detailed, from the eccentricities of 1912 Portland to the grand majesty of the ancient biblical lands. She certainly did her research and it paid off. Her world feels as real and alive as her protagonist, and the two match perfectly. The characters surrounding Miriam are also brave and flawed like she is. You are drawn into their lives and struggles, hoping that it will end on a good day for all.
Definitely an excellent read for any teenage girl, or any lover of history. This is a story that will echo with girls for years to come.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(1 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)
So much better than I was expecting. Instead of a sappy teen romance, Matched proved to be a provocative, well-written dystopia, looking into the heart of what it means to love and to find out what love really means. Her handle of the first person present tense was superb. An excellent read.
The story of post-apocalyptic Earth is not a new one. It’s been told in science fiction, in fantasy, and most recently in an abundance of young adult dystopian fiction. I was not expecting to find such a story in a middle grade book by Spiderwick Chronicles author Tony DiTerlizzi.
The Search for WondLa is the story of a twelve-year-old girl named Eva Nine. She lives in an underground Sanctuary with her robot caretaker Muthur, and longs to explore the outside world. One night the Sanctuary is attacked by a strange and violent beast, and Eva is forced into the world above. There she discovers that the planet and life she had been prepared for by Muthur and her self-contained habitat are nothing like what she finds. Making friends with Rovender Kitt, a native of the planet, and Otto, a lost water bear, Eva ventures with these two and Muthur into the strange wonder of this new world, on a quest to discover what happened to her people and to find her future.
This book falls solidly between the middle grade and young adult classifications. Because Eva is only twelve, this would place the book with a younger audience, but the content and depth of Eva’s story raises it to a YA level. There is violence in this world, beyond what you would find in the average middle grade novel. The complexity of the native cultures, as well as the science of Muthur and Eva’s sanctuary also are surprising and intriguing. DiTerlizzi has built a place that is real and alive with beauty and darkness, more like what you find in The Hunger Games or The Maze Runner series.
Initially my interest in the story was limited by Eva, mostly because she is so young, but also because her character does not have a lot of range in this first book (and yes, this is going to be a trilogy, no surprise). Eva is a typical twelve-year-old girl who’s sick of being stuck inside with mother and wants to go explore. And when she does get outside and discovers that the world is not an easy place to survive in, she is frightened and often turns to Muthur or her other friends for help. What saved the story for me was that while Eva did not per see change, she did at moments show a hidden inner strength--one that you would expect to develop as she grows older. When Eva stands up and demands for her life, for her safety, for her friends, she glows like the heroine that I look for in a good book.
Overall this was a great story, and a great adventure. The online content looks amazing--interactive maps that you can explore using your book and a webcam--and I looking forward to the next installation in this series, due out sometime in 2012.
I have never loved a book that I found on my own as I have loved the books that were recommended to me. In my publishing program we talk all the time about the future of books and the conversation inevitably comes back around to the fact that recommendations sell books. This book, An Abundance of Katherines by John Green, was recommended to me a few weeks ago by my boyfriend, and I am pleased to say that I will now count it among my favorites.
It’s about a seventeen-year-old boy named Colin. He is a child prodigy and has a serious complex about “mattering” to the world. And he has a complex over the fact that he has dated a total of nineteen Katherines in his life, and they have all dumped him. After Katherine XIX finally ditches Colin, he and his best friend Hassan decide to take a road trip, which leads them down to Gutshot, Tennessee. There they see the grave of the Archduke Ferdinand, meet a girl named Lindsey Lee Wells, and learn the history of this little town. During their stay Colin begins to formulate a Theorem of “Dumpers and Dumpees,” plotting out his love life through math. While he hopes that this mathematical equation will solve his Katherine problem and prove his worth to the world, Colin learns about what it really means to “matter.”
This book is everything that most YA books are not: funny and smart. A good number of YA books are funny"that’s what sells these days aside from the supernatural. A much smaller number are smart (The Book Thief, etc.). What really seals the deal for An Abundance of Katherines is the narration. It’s told in third person limited--which means we hear from only from Colin--with a fantastic balance of close and far narration. What that means is the narrator’s voice is sometimes so close to Colin’s thoughts that you can’t tell the difference, and other times the narrator is a completely separate entity, observing and commenting on the events of the book. Most writers can’t pull this off very well, or at all. And certainly most can’t do it with a splash of humor (from both the narrator and Colin).
The story too is simple and endearing. There’s a little romance, a little adventure, a little soul-searching. And of course some incredibly great lines. This is a book that you will quote to your friends and laugh about years from now, even when the details of the story are fuzzy. The idea and the message of this story--that it’s okay to not matter to the world, as long as you matter to those around you--comes through so strong and clear that you won’t have to remember the exact details of Colin and Hassan’s botched feral hog hunt, or the math that goes into Colin’s Theorem, or how many Katherines exactly there were, to remember why you love this book.
On a side note John Green also uses foot notes, which are surprisingly fun and unobtrusive. Nothing like David Foster Wallace, just little tidbits that add to the story.
A definite must-read for any fan of YA--or any reader in general.
Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.
Don't Miss
Customer Comments
Erin Clarkson has commented on (14) products.
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Erin Clarkson, February 7, 2012
Among all the vampires, apocalypses, and plagues John Green's books are always a breath of fresh air. His stories are smart, funny, sad, and utterly true about the world. His characters may not be the average Joe or Jane, but they have something so human at their heart that it impossible to not feel the emotional roller coaster and catharsis of their stories. With Looking for Alaska John took us somewhere heart-heartrendingly sad with teenager suicide. In An Abundance of Katherines we met the charismatic math prodigy searching for love, and finding it in the most unusual of places. In Paper Towns we go on a daring road trip through adventure and love. In Will Grayson, Will Grayson John partnered with David Levithan to bring us the story of two boys trying to find their way in the world and make an identity for themselves. Now in The Fault in Our Stars we meet Hazel Grace and August Waters: teenagers with cancer.From the very opening lines we see immediately that Hazel is darkly sarcastic and deeply afraid. She is sixteen years old and her cancer is slowly killing her. She knows she wants more out of life, but is resigned to the fact that she will not get it. Estranged from her old friends by her disease, she hides in her room re-reading her favorite book over and over again. The book is like Hazel: it is the story of a girl who could have a brilliant future, but her dreams are cut dramatically short (the book literally has no conclusive ending) by cancer. But Hazel's mother is not content to see her daughter waste away what is left of her life inside four walls: so Hazel ends up reluctantly joining a Support Group for teens with cancer. And that is where she meets Augustus Waters.
He is beautiful and athletic and funny and smart, and missing a leg from a surgery that saved his life and put him in remission several years before. Hazel is drawn to him because of his energy, his beauty, and the fact that he is instantly interested in her. Within their first day they are fast friends, with the stirrings of something more. Their romance is not love at first sight--at least not for Hazel--and it is not easy. Two teenagers brought low by the betrayal of their bodies can never laugh as easy as those of us who will never understand that pain. But they find the good and the laughter amid all the struggle.
As you would expect in a book like this, someone dies. I won't say who, because that ruins the story, but it's no spoiler to say that someone does. The real resonance of this story wouldn't exist without the death of one of the characters. While it might be a great dream/fantasy to read about two kids with cancer who miraculously beat it and go on to live long happy lives, that is not John Green's intention. He doesn't want to tell fantasies. He also isn't telling the hard, plain truth. His stories fall somewhere in the middle--in that place where dreams and reality meet to make us laugh and cry all at once. Even with death and reality looming over their shoulders we cheer for Hazel and Augustus until the very end.
So many nay-sayers of young adult fiction would argue that books for teens aren't worth reading because they have no deeper meaning. John Green's books (and so many other fantastic YA authors) blow those people away. The story of Hazel and Augustus is one of facing death, of finding your place in the universe, of wondering what you think about God and the afterlife, of trying to love someone even knowing that one of you will lost the other sooner than later, of trying to find meaning in the chaos.
The Fault in Our Stars will be a must-read this year for young adult readers, and readers of any age. It is one of those stories that will touch your heart in unexpected ways, and stick with you long after you have turned the last page.
(1 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)
Blue Thread by Ruth Tenzer Feldman
Erin Clarkson, February 4, 2012
Blue Thread is the story of Miriam Josefson. She lives in 1912 Portland, OR at the height of the women's suffrage movement. Her father owns a printing shop, which Miriam loves to visit and hopes one day to run. But her father is determined to have Miriam marry well and live life as a proper lady. It seems that no matter how hard Miriam tries, she will not sway her father. Then fate intervenes. One day a mysterious girl named Serakh appears to Miriam and tells her that her great-grandmother's prayer shawl is special: it has the power to transport Miriam through time. With the touch of the blue threads on the shawl Miriam finds herself in biblical times, in the midst of another struggle for women's rights, and her actions and decisions could change the lives of many. Alternating between journeys to the past and struggles in the present, Miriam's story is one of perseverance, dreams, and the power of one woman to change the world.What I loved about Blue Thread was Miriam. She is headstrong and confident, but still learning what it means to be a woman in her world. She is sixteen, at the crux of becoming a woman, but still held in the thralls of childhood by her parents. Struggling to free herself from sexist prejudices and societal expectations, Miriam breaks all the rules in her effort to build a place for herself in what could be a new world. But amid all her bravery she is still afraid: afraid of her father and angering him (because despite his flaws she does love him), afraid that one wrong word will doom her friends in ancient times, afraid that the suffrage movement will fail, afraid that she will not get to live in the future that she wants to. Her strength and her flaws are what makes Miriam feel so alive. Even though she lived a hundred years ago, through her actions and dreams she is just like any teenager today, wishing for a better world.
The world and story that Feldman built is lush and detailed, from the eccentricities of 1912 Portland to the grand majesty of the ancient biblical lands. She certainly did her research and it paid off. Her world feels as real and alive as her protagonist, and the two match perfectly. The characters surrounding Miriam are also brave and flawed like she is. You are drawn into their lives and struggles, hoping that it will end on a good day for all.
Definitely an excellent read for any teenage girl, or any lover of history. This is a story that will echo with girls for years to come.
(1 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)
Matched #01: Matched by Ally Condie
Erin Clarkson, January 2, 2012
So much better than I was expecting. Instead of a sappy teen romance, Matched proved to be a provocative, well-written dystopia, looking into the heart of what it means to love and to find out what love really means. Her handle of the first person present tense was superb. An excellent read.The Search for WondLa (Search for WondLa #01) by Tony DiTerlizzi
Erin Clarkson, September 1, 2011
The story of post-apocalyptic Earth is not a new one. It’s been told in science fiction, in fantasy, and most recently in an abundance of young adult dystopian fiction. I was not expecting to find such a story in a middle grade book by Spiderwick Chronicles author Tony DiTerlizzi.The Search for WondLa is the story of a twelve-year-old girl named Eva Nine. She lives in an underground Sanctuary with her robot caretaker Muthur, and longs to explore the outside world. One night the Sanctuary is attacked by a strange and violent beast, and Eva is forced into the world above. There she discovers that the planet and life she had been prepared for by Muthur and her self-contained habitat are nothing like what she finds. Making friends with Rovender Kitt, a native of the planet, and Otto, a lost water bear, Eva ventures with these two and Muthur into the strange wonder of this new world, on a quest to discover what happened to her people and to find her future.
This book falls solidly between the middle grade and young adult classifications. Because Eva is only twelve, this would place the book with a younger audience, but the content and depth of Eva’s story raises it to a YA level. There is violence in this world, beyond what you would find in the average middle grade novel. The complexity of the native cultures, as well as the science of Muthur and Eva’s sanctuary also are surprising and intriguing. DiTerlizzi has built a place that is real and alive with beauty and darkness, more like what you find in The Hunger Games or The Maze Runner series.
Initially my interest in the story was limited by Eva, mostly because she is so young, but also because her character does not have a lot of range in this first book (and yes, this is going to be a trilogy, no surprise). Eva is a typical twelve-year-old girl who’s sick of being stuck inside with mother and wants to go explore. And when she does get outside and discovers that the world is not an easy place to survive in, she is frightened and often turns to Muthur or her other friends for help. What saved the story for me was that while Eva did not per see change, she did at moments show a hidden inner strength--one that you would expect to develop as she grows older. When Eva stands up and demands for her life, for her safety, for her friends, she glows like the heroine that I look for in a good book.
Overall this was a great story, and a great adventure. The online content looks amazing--interactive maps that you can explore using your book and a webcam--and I looking forward to the next installation in this series, due out sometime in 2012.
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
Erin Clarkson, May 25, 2011
I have never loved a book that I found on my own as I have loved the books that were recommended to me. In my publishing program we talk all the time about the future of books and the conversation inevitably comes back around to the fact that recommendations sell books. This book, An Abundance of Katherines by John Green, was recommended to me a few weeks ago by my boyfriend, and I am pleased to say that I will now count it among my favorites.It’s about a seventeen-year-old boy named Colin. He is a child prodigy and has a serious complex about “mattering” to the world. And he has a complex over the fact that he has dated a total of nineteen Katherines in his life, and they have all dumped him. After Katherine XIX finally ditches Colin, he and his best friend Hassan decide to take a road trip, which leads them down to Gutshot, Tennessee. There they see the grave of the Archduke Ferdinand, meet a girl named Lindsey Lee Wells, and learn the history of this little town. During their stay Colin begins to formulate a Theorem of “Dumpers and Dumpees,” plotting out his love life through math. While he hopes that this mathematical equation will solve his Katherine problem and prove his worth to the world, Colin learns about what it really means to “matter.”
This book is everything that most YA books are not: funny and smart. A good number of YA books are funny"that’s what sells these days aside from the supernatural. A much smaller number are smart (The Book Thief, etc.). What really seals the deal for An Abundance of Katherines is the narration. It’s told in third person limited--which means we hear from only from Colin--with a fantastic balance of close and far narration. What that means is the narrator’s voice is sometimes so close to Colin’s thoughts that you can’t tell the difference, and other times the narrator is a completely separate entity, observing and commenting on the events of the book. Most writers can’t pull this off very well, or at all. And certainly most can’t do it with a splash of humor (from both the narrator and Colin).
The story too is simple and endearing. There’s a little romance, a little adventure, a little soul-searching. And of course some incredibly great lines. This is a book that you will quote to your friends and laugh about years from now, even when the details of the story are fuzzy. The idea and the message of this story--that it’s okay to not matter to the world, as long as you matter to those around you--comes through so strong and clear that you won’t have to remember the exact details of Colin and Hassan’s botched feral hog hunt, or the math that goes into Colin’s Theorem, or how many Katherines exactly there were, to remember why you love this book.
On a side note John Green also uses foot notes, which are surprisingly fun and unobtrusive. Nothing like David Foster Wallace, just little tidbits that add to the story.
A definite must-read for any fan of YA--or any reader in general.
1-5 of 14next