The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

There have been a handful of books I’ve read over recent years that, upon reading the final page, I have wanted to flip back over and read again.  Some I’ve been able to (if I own them and don’t have another book waiting in the wings), and some I haven’t (if they are due back at the library or I have a deadline for another book). 

The first of these books was Twilight.  I know there are some who may turn their noses up at such an unliterary choice, but this book made me fall in love with reading again.  I’d always loved reading but I was thoroughly bored with grown-up books.  More and more often I was choosing to read magazines instead.  It had never occurred to me, until I had children of my own, that an adult could still enjoy children and YA literature.  I decided to read Twilight, not out of any real interest in the subject, but to find out what all the fuss was about.  I hadn’t read a teen love story since I was a teen and I loved Twilight despite its flaws.  It reacquainted me with the girl I used to be, the one who believed in true love and possibilities.

A few of the other books I’ve wanted to reread immediately:  The Changeover by Margaret Mahy, Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan and The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. 

This past week I read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.  It’s a book about kids with cancer.  It will make you laugh.  It will make you cry.  It will make you hug your loved ones tighter.  You’ve got to love a book that can do all that without being sappy and that’s why I’m reading it again.

Best bit of The Fault in Our Stars:  “That’s the thing about pain,” Augustus said, and then glanced back at me.  “It demands to be felt.” – John Green.

Chilly Melbourne mornings

Best Bit of chilly Melbourne mornings: Glorious winter days.

Best Bit of Jasper Jones

This year I’ve been working my way through the list of Top Ten Aussie Books to Read Before You Die - http://www.abc.net.au/arts/aussiebooks/.  I had read several of the titles already and Jasper Jones was my final one.  Had it not been on the list, I may have given up on it – something I rarely do. 

It’s about a couple of boys who discover a dead body then hide it.  When a dead body is involved you expect a murder mystery or detective novel, but it doesn’t read like that.  A lot of the time I kept thinking ‘Get on with the story’. The characters spend a lot of time talking about stuff that doesn’t move the story forward.  Charlie Bucktin was more observer than main character.  Had he been more proactive, the story would have been stronger.  I think it was worth sticking with though for the secrets revealed in the second half of the book.

Best bit of Jasper Jone:  Sorry means you feel the pulse of other people’s pain, as well as your own, and saying it means you take a share of it. – Craig Silvey.