Paper Towns: John Green

Overview

Quentin Jacobsen considers the fact that he lives next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman the miracle that he has been granted in his life. Even though they don't talk much anymore, he still thinks of her. So he is understandably apprehensive when she waltzes back in through his bedroom window- intent on taking him out on the town for a night of ninja antics and vengeance.

He thinks that things will be different after that.

Until he wakes up the next morning- and Margo is gone.

Through a series of clues, Q finds himself racing across town, trying to follow the trail she's lain. Becoming more and more confused as her clues lead him to a girl he isn't sure he ever really knew.


My Thoughts

I honestly have mixed feelings about any book by John Green. On the one hand, the man writes beautifully moving stories about people who seem so very real. On the other, he also has a tendency to make me want to fling his book across the room and curl into a ball until it doesn't hurt so much.

I first came across this duality with The Fault in Our Stars (which I will be seeing at least twice in the first week that it comes out). The books I've read from him since then- Let it Snow, Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines- were all consumed while bracing for tragedy. It came, of course, but it never hurt as much as TFiOS.

Until Paper Towns.

It seems that my thoughts this time revolve more around the author than the book- but sometimes you really can't separate the two. I find myself not so much unable as unwilling to separate the choices and events in Paper Towns from Green's ability to deal with Big Issues without proclaiming I AM DEALING WITH A BIG ISSUE HERE SO PAY ATTENTION. Instead, the issues grow and evolve naturally with the story, in repeated metaphors of mirrors versus windows and meditations about grass and hands that span continents and minds that correctly imagine.

Paper Towns is a feast for a tired soul, a book that deals with important parts of life within a beautifully told tale of a boy looking for a lost girl who once lived next door to him in a paper town.

P.S. It seems that this book will also be made into a movie. Well done, John Green. Well done.

Quiet- The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking: Susan Cain

General Overview

At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking, reading to partying; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over brainstorming in teams. Although they are often labeled "quiet," it is to introverts that we owe many of the great contributions to society--from van Gogh’s sunflowers to the invention of the personal computer.

Passionately argued, impressively researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet shows how dramatically we undervalue introverts, and how much we lose in doing so.

My Thoughts

I first came across this book in 2012, when I attended the Library 2.012 Virtual Conference. I was intrigued enough to purchase and read it the following year, and I can honestly say that it was a pleasure to read. Not only did I see myself in many of the situations and issues that this book raised: I saw my friends. My students. It explores (in a sequence of very simple discussions involving psychological studies and experiences from businessmen, parents, educators, students and others) the emphasis modern society places on the human as a social being, and encourages the exploration of the more introverted aspects  of a person's character.

I never got the sense that the author was giving a free pass for people to exclude themselves from any and all social interaction: far from it. I felt as if she were talking to me. Encouraging me. Telling me that it was okay that I usually bring a book or a notepad to social events. That it was okay that I spent much of my years at school with my nose in a book (and still do, in fact). That it was okay for me to work better on my own. I was left with a powerful reminder: that as an introvert, I have my own strengths. So while it was okay to stick my nose in that book on a regular basis, the benefits of my doing so would be lost if I didn't find a way to share what I discovered with others. 

As readers, teachers, educators, parents, leaders: in whatever role we operate, we have to help the introverts among us to see their value; to discover ways to find and express their power in a world that doesn't always stop to listen. We have to encourage our extroverts to appreciate the contributions the introverts among them can make- and in some cases, to follow their example of deeper thought. 

If we don't, we run the risk of losing something very special.

Attachments: Rainbow Rowell

Overview

Beth and Jennifer are persistent rule-breakers. Oh, nothing too bad. It's not as if they break red lights or park in handicap spots or even rob grocery stores. They just use their work emails for personal correspondence- much of the time, with each other. No harm done, is there? What can possibly come from their chats about the lack of good-looking guys in their building, Jennifer's marriage and reluctance to get pregnant, or Beth's musician boyfriend and his unwillingness to even consider the "M" word?

Nothing, of course.

Unless their company hired one Lincoln O'Neill to make sure company policy is followed regarding emails.

Unless Lincoln is so amused by Beth and Jennifer that he never sends them a citation for the breach.

Unless Lincoln keeps reading their exchanges, and finds himself falling in love.

Hi. I'm the guy who reads your email. And also, I love you...


My Thoughts

This is the second book I've read from this author, and I love it almost as much as I did my first (that first being Fangirl- review coming soon). I'm a big fan of seemingly impossible romances, and this one had quite a few barriers: the girl is in a relationship. The guy has never actually seen her.

Not to mention the fact that he now knows so many private things about her.

You would think that these issues could be easily resolved, but Rowell includes in the dynamics an aspect of romance that I love to see featured: being in love makes idiots of us all.

As events snowball, the emails get more and more personal. When a new figure makes an appearance in the exchanges the possibility of Lincoln untangling himself from the mess he's created grow more and more faint until you know there's only one option left to him. Rainbow Rowell made it so easy to feel for these characters, to envision them, to sink into their lives, their minds, their worries, to laugh, worry and cry with them, that it was almost painful when that final page was turned.

You Wish: Mandy Hubbard

General overview

Sweet sixteen birthdays are supposed to be special. But Kayla's is turning out to be anything but. Her mother insists on throwing a party she doesn't want, featuring a theme she hates and people she doesn't know (or wishes she didn't). Things keep piling up until by the time she blows out her candles, she's angry enough to think, "I wish my birthday wishes actually came true. Because they never freakin' do."

The next morning, a pink pony shows up in her yard. Gumballs cover her floor when she wakes up another day. Things keep getting stranger and stranger until she realises that all the birthday wishes she's made in the past are now coming true.

And it has to stop.

Because last year, she wished that she could kiss the boy she's still in love with: Ben Mackenzie, her best friend's boyfriend.


My thoughts

This book is a huge hit at my school library, and I can well understand why. Mandy Hubbard keeps you on a fast ride through this teenage girl's nightmare-come-true. With relatable characters, stalking dolls, reappearing gumballs, a pony that just won't quit and the ever-present risk that she'll eventually destroy the only friendship she has, it's a quick, fun read that's easy to love.

SPOILERS: Allegiant (Veronica Roth)

WARNING: This post contains spoilers for Allegiant. 

---

There has been a lot of uproar over the events at the end of Allegiant. I will confess that I expected someone important to die. Divergent has not been a very happy series, after all (though it has nothing on Game of Thrones, a series I’m still too traumatised to complete). It’s no huge leap to expect a Huge Sacrificial Moment to bring the series to an end. For several pages, Roth convinced me that this task would fall to Caleb in his drive towards Redemption. She nudged me toward the switch though, in all of Tris’ musings about letting people sacrifice themselves for you.

Still, it was only when Tris pulled out that gun on Caleb that I thought, “Of course.”

Of course she wouldn’t let the brother she still loves, despite all his mistakes, to kill himself just to gain her forgiveness. She may be Divergent, but she was raised Abnegation and chose Dauntless. She’s been raised to look out for the concerns and feelings of others, and trained to defend both them and herself. Most importantly, Caleb is her brother. No matter what he’s done, despite the mistakes he may have made, he is her brother. And she will not send someone she loves on a suicide mission that she can likely survive.


If Tris had let Caleb complete that mission, something inside her may have broken.


This is, I think, part of what makes being a writer so hard. It’s not often that they can just do what readers demand. Writers must have a greater loyalty to the people they’ve created (and, by doing so, ultimately to their readers).

Of course Tris would be the one to walk into that room- her character would never allow for anything else, especially since she had a chance of surviving the serum.

Of course David would keep an eye on her and be suspicious of the time she spends with the Damaged- he’s planning to erase almost everyone she’s ever known.

The two of them were always going to end up facing off in that tiny room. And while Tris may not have been prepared for him, especially because of his handicap, he was going to be prepared for her.

The Fault in Our Stars- John Green

I can't tell you when I first heard about this book.

I can't tell you why I wanted to read a book about a girl with cancer so badly that I not only bought two copies for my Library as soon as I saw it (read: found it after extensive searching): I also bought one for myself at roughly the same time.

I can tell you why I was crying for roughly the entire second half of the book.

But I won't.

There's a concept expressed in this book that I had heard of before but never meditated on, but as with many things with this book, now I can't stop thinking about it.

The fact is, once a book enters your hands and you start reading it, it does not belong to its author any more  Sure, they wrote the words; they created the characters and the world. But what you take away from the book will not be simply what they wanted you to: because you're not the author. Your life, your experiences, shape your views of the world and everything in it- including the books you read.

This is why I won't say what I took away from this book.

I won't tell you anything more about the plot than what the book jacket reveals: that it's about a girl named Hazel whose lungs fail at being lungs and a boy named Augustus with one leg. Two kids with cancer.

It's that cancer book I've been waiting to read for twenty odd years.

So go. Pick up a copy. Find a quiet spot. Keep the tissues handy. And... I hope you take something special away from this gem of a tale.