The Fault in Our Stars...by John Green

Have you ever read a book that defies your ability to write a coherent review because ...it leaves you speechless? Yet at the same time with this overwhelming urge to tell everyone you've ever met to go read it right now, at this very minute? Have you read a book that made you laugh, and smile, and sigh, and then towards the end sob uncontrollably, with tears racing down your face and blurring your eyes...yet in a weirdly good painful comforting way that can't quite be described? And crying still five to ten minutes after the last page has been read? That twists and turns inside you and speaks weirdly to your soul? But somehow...you think, I can't tell anyone too much about this book, because it may spoil it? And you are weirdly worried that if people do go out and read it - they won't like it, they won't see what you saw...because your relationship with the book has become personal. The book has somehow worked its way into your heart and is now part of you?

Well...sometimes I think we land on books or pieces of art at just the right moment, and through those works...angels or god or the eternal Something speaks through or maybe just another soul connects with us...connecting us in turn with well so many other souls.

My flist has been so quiet these last few days. Too quiet. I wonder if I'm even being read, if there is anyone out there. And this book speaks to that odd feeling...of yearning. To leave a mark.

I will share these snippet of a paragraph with you - with no context and no spoilers, except that it is a letter from a fan to the writer of a book they loved:
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I want to share more, but it is hard to without sharing the entire book. For even that bit above doesn't quite work if you don't know all that has come before it.

On its face this is a story about two kids with cancer falling in love while hunting the answers to a book they love, which ended in the middle of a sentence. They search out those answers from a reclusive writer living in Amsterdam, who has an indescribable fondness for Swedish rap music. And yes, it sounds incredibly sentimental. And no, I'd never would have picked it up if it weren't for green_maia's suggestion that I try it - she sparked my curiousity. If she hadn't I'd never would have read this book and fallen in love with it. You should also know that I rarely cry at books or movies. I did not cry once when I read the Hunger Games trilogy - never known why. So it takes a lot to move me.

Also...plot-wise, the story tends to be predictable in places. I knew what would happen more or less. But in other places it is not predictable at all. It's a philosophical journey of mind and heart. Although that's not quite the right phrase.

I will state it is the best book I've read in five years. Or certainly moved me the most and changed me the most. Can a book change you? I don't know. Or does it just get you in touch with yourself? It made me see things I hadn't realized. And clarified things I had.

Such as it is ridiculous to believe that characters in a novel or tv series live on the writer who created them mind or head. The writer doesn't know what happened to them next. For the writer, those character's stories often stopped at the end of the novel, they don't continue past that. Or the writer doesn't want them to. That what we know of the universe is limited by our own imagination of it.

Yet all of this...sounds so mundane...so not quite right. Which is why I said, the book leaves me speechless. I want to discuss it, but I'm not sure how...without giving too much away, for it works best if you go into it with less information.

The Fault in Our Stars is a beautiful book...about, well, more than you'd think by looking at the description at the AV Club review or my words above. As the AV Club review states - the book should not work, it should fall into the sentimental treacle of a Lifetime movie, but instead it feels like JD Salinger (although I liked it a lot better than Salinger who I think is highly overrated) with a caustic female narrator that rivals Holden Caulfield (I liked her better than Caulfield). Proving that old adage you can't tell a book by its cover to be more than true.

Tv shows: Walking Dead, Ringer

I've tried to send v-gifts to people in the past, but I can't get the dang thing to work.

Anyhow...I watched the recent episodes of The Walking Dead S2 - and the following comes to mind:

1. Is it just me? Or ...With the possible exception of Mad Men, are all of AMC's original dramas are nihilistic depictions of the absolute worst in human behavior or the dregs of humanity? I'd say they depict people as cockroaches, except cockroaches are nicer to each other and have more dignity. It's a pattern I've noticed in AMC's dramas. Also in regards F/X's original dramas, with the possible exception of Justified. So if you like to watch tv shows that depict humanity at it's ultimate worst - F/X and AMC's dramas will appeal to you.

2. The second half of Season 2 is much better paced than the first half. Oh they still do dumb things, it's just better paced and there are more zombie attacks and fight scenes. Although, the people were a lot nicer in the first half of the season than the second...so I guess it depends on which you prefer nicer people or quicker pacing?

My favorite characters continue to be Andrea and Daryl. They are also by far the smartest to date.
Everyone else does and says increasingly stupid things. Seriously, you'd think these people had forgotten their are "walking dead" wandering about. And why doesn't anyone in this show call them zombies? Don't horror novels/movies exist in this verse? Guessing not.

( spoilers )

Also saw Ringer - which made less sense this week than last week, if that's possible. Oh well at least Juliet, Mr. C, and the Mom subplot has been wrapped up and they are gone. Good riddance. I like bad serials because I find them unpredictable. I want to figure them out and often can't because the plot makes no sense and wanders all over the place, like this one does. Although normally the characters are more likable and the story has a a sense of fun to it, not so much here.

( spoilers )

On Being a Writer and on Falling in Love with the Story not the Writer

Me: I wanted to be a writer. It is the one thing I always wanted.
Momster: But You are a writer.
Me: No -
Momster: You write all the time, entries in a journal, several books, long business memos, articles for church...constantly.
Me: I'm not published
Momster: You mean you are not a recognized writer, but that does not mean you aren't a writer, a really good writer at that.

After reading The Fault in Our Stars...it occurs to me that we do not see ourselves so clearly or the world around us for that matter.

Hazel Grace: You are never satisfied. You want to be a hero, you are afraid you will not live to do great things. So you won't be an NBA basketball star, a noble prize winner, a great war hero or live old and become a famous writer like Peter Van Houten...those things can't happen. But you loved me, we had a love, we did these things, you touched people - it's as if I'm not -

I've read all these blurbs from self-help books about hunting a purpose, finding a way to contribute and touch lives in great ways, to do what we love...and yet, I wonder...am I not doing it in my own fashion.

Momster: I remember reading your work as a child, it wasn't very good. Now, it's night and day.
Me: I worked hard at it...but never quite -
Momster: No, you did. You are a marvelous writer now. You worked on it all the time and continue to do so. Daily. You write business memos and things and that can't be easy. I don't know how you do it.
Me: I love to write.

Walking through Barnes and Noble today...it struck me, how many writers there are. Of different shades and sizes and strokes. So many in the Young Adult field. Then I wandered into Book Court and saw still more. Different ones. The two book stores did not, oddly, carry all the same books, you'd think they would. But no. Catherynne Valente was in Barnes and Noble but not in Book Court, while Lauren Groff appeared to be only in Book Court, although I could be wrong about that. I found it reassuring to see so many...to realize how many I'd never heard of. To know to write doesn't mean to survive past one's due date...merely to tell a story that touches others, while the writer falls away. I know this because I flipped through John Green's other works and much as Hazel Grace realizes about Peter Van Houten...I realized the writer is not the story. Even if it somehow magically arises from his or her mind. It took me a while to figure it out about Whedon as well.

We or I fall in love with a book or story, whether it be in film, book or tv form...and when it completes...I find myself hunting other works by that writer, hunting more. I want more of that story I loved. I want it to continue forever. Not to end. I want to marry that story. I want to be it's wife and bride. To sleep with it (and I actually did try to do this as a little girl - it didn't work but I did literally try it - I tended to want to make the metaphorical literal back then as small children often will seeing very little difference between the two or at least I didn't). To live with it. I do not want it to end. I do not want to let it go. I will replay it in mind. I will re-read it. I will re-watch. And how dare the writer kill off any of the characters.
But it does end, of course. It stops. Even if it is in a middle of sentence. There's an end.
And even if you search out and manage to find other books by that same writer - you won't find that same story. Even if you are lucky enough to hunt the writer down, and find him or her on a blog, on the internet, in their house, at a con - the most you will get is a picture taken, an autograph and maybe some new stories, but no answers to the one you read. No true sequel or continuation past its expiration date. You can't bribe them to give you what they don't have.
And you realize that its not the writer you love, that the writer isn't your best friend, but his or her story.
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