The Fault in Our Stars or Feels times ∞

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Today's review is John Green's The Fault in Our Stars. Tears may ensue and all your feels will hit you like a ton of bricks if you ever decide to pick this book up.

Goodreads says:

 Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 13, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs... for now.

Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault.

Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind.

The Fault in Our Stars is Green's fourth book and it's ridiculous awesome. I have not read Paper Towns and Looking for Alaska, but I have read An Abundance of Katherine's. Green is a contemporary writer in YA who writes with feeling (but who doesn't?) , with the teenagers who are like old people who know what suck is, and try to avoid it. TFiOS is about a girl, Hazel, who has cancer. She's resorted to just hanging at her house because with her cancer, it's not good for her to linger outside. But, she's stuck with going to a Cancer Support Group, which Hazel immediately calls B.S on. So, as she's forced to go to the support group, she meets this new guy who's fascinating to her. His name's Augustus Waters and he too has cancer, osteosarcoma.

This my dear friends starts from a simple friendship which blooms into a tender, heartbreaking relationship. John Green writes these characters so well, as if he were experiencing the pain along with him and that was one of the greatest things about TFIOS.

Essentially, it's a story of how to live when you know that you're dying.

Hazel and Augustus (or Gus) were two beautifully drawn characters that you can't help wish had more time in their lives because they deserve it. Whereas Hazel was okay with sitting back with watching America's Next Top Model, you could tell it was a front as to prevent herself to become self-pitying as the lung cancer has tested that throughout her life. Gus is similar to Hazel in terms of that, as he keeps an unlit cigar in his mouth to prove that it can't kill him. TFIOS is so tragic, so heartbreaking that the bursts of hilarity that appear make sure you're either always laughing or crying.

Do I Recommend This? Hells Yes. You won't regret adding this to your bookshelf.

The First Contemporary of 2013!

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Goodreads says: 

An all-day scavenger hunt in the name of eternal small-town glory.

With only a week until graduation, there's one last thing Mary and her friends must do together: participate in the Oyster Point High Official Unofficial Senior Week Scavenger Hunt. And Mary is determined to win.

Mary lost her spot at Georgetown to self-professed "it" bully Jake Barbone, and she's not about to lose again. But everyone is racing for the finish line with complicated motives, and the team's all-night adventure becomes all-night drama as shifting alliances, flared tempers, and crushing crushes take over. As the items and points pile up, Mary and her team must reinvent their strategy--and themselves--in order to win.

The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life was an entertaining, fast read. It's contemporary, so there weren't any of the lovely fantasy creatures I adore so much, but Best Night was pretty good. Our main character Mary is sorta of a boring, "goody two-shoes" character who also happens to be judgmental as show throughout Best Night (but then again, who isn't somewhat judgmental?) So, the story progress through the course of one day where all those pent-up emotions you experience during high school rears its ugly head one last time before you have to let those feelings go. What Altebrando did really good was capturing the many moods of Mary and her friends Winter, Dez, Patrick and then Carson and Jill. 

Like I said earlier, Mary is a judgmental girl who's so sure the impressions she has of people are always right and there's no need for a second chance to evaluate those impressions. Mary also believes herself to be invisible to her fellow classmates, but has actually left marks on them that weren't favorable first impressions. While I don't mind the "having to be nice to everyone" rule people like, I found it interesting that Mary didn't bother with many of her classmates of leaving them with any impression of her. The surrounding cast is also really good too. Winter is a sweet yet distant girl, with lots of her own problems of having to take care and raise her little sister while their mother ignores them. It was the times when Winter had scenes was when it got sad as you want to wrap Winter up in a blanket and hug her.

 Patrick and Dez brought their own interesting stories to Best Night too. While Patrick was originally shown to be as the dude who pines for his best (girl) friend to notice him and maybe give him a shot, we see sides to him besides that role. He was funny and cared for his friends. Then, there's Dez who along with being Mary's friend was gay. And he got a lot of crap for it from his classmates. I liked how Aldebrando not only included an LGBQT* character, she also decided to explore how the classmates deal with it. While I didn't like how the other character treated Dez, it was definitely useful to show how kids that should be accepting of each other, weren't.

Carson, Jill and Jake weren't as focused upon as the core four were, I liked how Aldebrando showed you one side (the cliched version if you will) and later added layer upon. Carson and Jill were shown as the cute, perfect couple but as the story and scavenger hunt went on you saw how Jill knew the relationship wasn't gonna work while Carson was already ready to cut ties with her to move onto the next girl. Then Jake is shown to be the bully stereotype, but again as the novel and the scav hunt progresses, we see why the animosity between him and Mary is thick. 

Overall, this book read like one of those high school teen movies where anything happens and anything goes. Like Easy A, The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Do I Recommend this? Hell Yeah.

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Even MORE Fiction Crushes....

Today I'll be reviewing Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. Dear god, how much I love this book cannot be fathomed. Anyways, let's get on with the review segment.

Goodreads!!: Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris - until she meets Etienne St. Clair: perfect, Parisian (and English and American, which makes for a swoon-worthy accent), and utterly irresistible. The only problem is that he's taken, and Anna might be, too, if anything comes of her almost-relationship back home.

As winter melts into spring, will a year of romantic near - misses end with the French kiss Anna - and readers - have long awaited?



So I thought AtFK was pretty amazing. And hysterical. Granted, I hadn't slept in two days so my brain was all loopy but it's pretty funny on its own too! AtFK is a YA Contemporary Romance novel and I luuuurved it, so so much!!! I usually don't read Contemporary OR Romance so the fact that I read this was a mystery to me! Anyways, the book starts off with Anna, our sweet and sassy *shocker, I know* protagonist, unpacking in the SOAP (School of America in Paris) and her parents leaving. Let's just say that Anna's dad is a Nicholas Sparks-y type of person (a douchenozzle, if you will) and through Anna, you feel the dislike she holds against her dad. Hell, If I had a dad like hers, I would've have such a cry of rebellion a long time ago. But as Anna gets used to SOAP, she makes fast friends with Mer, Josh, Rashmi and Etienne St.Clair. These characters are all lively, rich and totally teenagers with relationship problems. You could consider them to be "outcasts' but not really because they're all awesome. So back to the review, I think that AtFK is such a good book because the characters are all flawed and human!!!! They FIGHT like FRIENDS!!! They GROW throughout the book with EACH OTHER'S HELP!!!!

I think I have far too many scenes that I love in AtFK because Stephanie Perkins is. just. damn. cool. A few of the scenes:
WHYAREYOUGIVINGAWAYTHECOOKIES? The November Holiday at School, the table dancing (don't ask, just read), the long distance calling, the escalator scene, the "you're alone in Paris with no adults and you haven't drunk yet?" moment (ahh peer pressure *grins*), the KISS moment (whoops...), Anna's first tour in Paris (with St.Clair, no less!) and more. Trust me, you'll LOVE this book!


also because I feel this is sort of what Anna's and St.Clair's relationship is: (I know it's Taylor Swift but you can't deny the music *shrug*)




Alrighty guys have a FABULOUS weekend and I'll come back Monday (or sooner!)

P.S doesn't Benjamin Stone look like St.Clair? NO, just a little bit? Meh, who do you think would be a good St.Clair