The Fault in Our Stars

Written by John Green

Goodreads Synopsis: Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 12, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumors 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 tumors 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.

My Confession: Every so often, I come across a book that gets me really excited. Really excited about the fact that I can stumble across something that causes me to miss valuable hours of sleep because I've become physically incapable of putting the book down. Really excited about the idea that one person could make up a story so enthralling, so emotional, and so enchanting that it reminds me once again why I am a writer, and why I spend countless hours reading other people's words.

This is one of those books.

It's hard to put into words everything this book will make you feel. It is one of the most beautiful, well-crafted stories I've ever read. It's stunning and heartbreaking, and the raw honesty and bare reality literally took my breath away at times.

I had a moment with this book. I connected with this book. I have never felt quite so gutted, quite so drained after finishing a book, and then immediately felt the urge to pick it back up and read it all over again.

Augustus and Hazel have a connection that doesn't need glitz, glamour, or paranormal activity to portray the strength of true love. Their interactions are specific and intellectual, their banter witty and humerous. The added notion that they both battle(d) cancer adds a note of irony and maturity to their relationship, but you never forget that these are kids, kids who just happen to see the world a whole lot differently than most people do.

This is not a story about cancer and what it takes away. This is a story about finding love and transcending both time and circumstance. It's a story about life and what you do with it; love and whether you choose to believe it; hope and how you dare to feel it.

Recommendation: If you call yourself a book lover, or like myself, a bookaholic, then you cannot--cannot--miss this book. It is one of the most powerful things I've ever read. Everyone should feel the simultaneous, beautiful confliction of bone-rattling, earth-shaking love and knee-breaking, heart-wrenching sorrow that The Fault in Our Stars makes you experience in its breathtaking 300 pages. Read it. It's a rollercoaster worth riding.

Again and again.

Rating: 5/5

318 pages, published by Dutton Juvenile (Jan. 10, 2012)

Quote of the Day

"Neither novels nor their readers benefit from any attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story. Such efforts attack the very idea that made-up stories can matter, which is sort of the foundational assumption of our species."

The Fault in Our Stars

Embrace

Written by Jessica Shirvington

Goodreads Synopsis: It starts with a whisper: "It's time for you to know who you are."
Violet Eden dreads her seventeenth birthday. After all, it's hard to get too excited about the day that marks the anniversary of your mother's death. As if that wasn't enough, disturbing dreams haunt her sleep and leave her with very real injuries. There's a dark tattoo weaving its way up her arms that wasn't there before.
Violet is determined to get some answers, but nothing could have prepared her for the truth. The guy she thought she could fall in love with has been keeping his identity a secret: he's only half-human--oh, and same goes for her.
A centuries-old battle between fallen angels and the protectors of humanity has chosen its new warrior. It's a fight Violet doesn't want, but she lives her life by two rules: don't run and don't quit. When angels seek vengeance and humans are the warriors, you could do a lot worse than betting on Violet Eden...

My Confession: This was my very first ARC (advance reader copy, for those of you not schooled in publishing terms). It appeared in my mailbox at work as if by magic, a puffy manila envelope of promise, come to bring me the slightest of smiles on a Monday afternoon.  The bundle of joy contained an uncorrected proof for a new YA series, the first of which is Embrace, a story of fallen angels and a love triangle-gone-very-wrong. It's a three-book series that has already been published (and made quite a splash in) Australia, so the final two books in the series will be released in six-month increments. Given the usual year (at least) between series that are written a book at a time, the pacing for these novels could prove influential in how the story is embraced (whoa, no pun intended there) by American YA readers.

And, all in all, I think people will like these books. First of all, the cover art is brilliant. I'm a big fan of bright, bold colors, and the purple used here is undeniably eye-catching. Second, people still love paranormal romances. Why this trend hasn't died out yet still muddles my mind a bit, but there is a market for books like these, especially when they're done well, which is definitely the case here. The story is complicated and varies greatly from other fallen angel stories out there. Violet is a pretty strong heroine, with a background in martial arts and a complicated, estranged relationship with her father. She seems to have been forced to fend for herself, which leaves her a bit callused and abrasive.

But she falls for Lincoln, a much-older martial arts instructor who takes a special interest in Violet. The two become close friends when he offers to teach her one-on-one. You immediately get the impression that Lincoln is the only stable thing in Violet's life, her trust and confidence in him so physically tangible. So when she finds out that he is hiding his true nature from her, she's shattered. His interest in her begins to look like obligation, and as she grapples with his betrayal, she falls under the spell of another guy, a fallen angel named Phoenix, whose influence on her life proves detrimental to not just her relationship with Lincoln, but the bigger angel battle currently being waged around her.

Recommendation: You're going to get sucked in, so get ready. The story is very addictive, and while the numerous twists and turns will leave you a bit whiplashed at times, it's a pretty inventive rollercoaster. I really like these characters. I like Lincoln, and I like Violet. This isn't so much a love story as it is a story about forgiveness: forgiveness of others and forgiveness of yourself. And then it's a battle. A giant, psychological and physical battle that's pretty awesome. But the one thing I have to harp on, because I just have to, is the barrier that keeps Lincoln and Violet apart. Because they're destined "angel partners," a physical relationship between the two is impossible. In other words, just like a famous vampire novel phenom, sex can kill them.

Oh, please.

Rating: 4/5

367 pages, published by Sourcebooks Fire (March 6, 2012)

*I received this book free from YPG*

Quote of the Day

"We had done it before. Pretended we fit like the hollow of earth beneath a rock that had rested against the same dirt for centuries. Millennia. And when the raw truth of our differences felt harsh and uncompromising, we shifted positions, tried again. It wasn't deceptive, not really. It was who we were."

Far from Here

When She Woke

Written by Hillary Jordan

Goodreads Synopsis: Hannah Payne's life has been devoted to church and family. But after she's convicted of murder, she awakens to a nightmarish new life. She finds herself lying on a table in a bare room, covered only by a paper gown, with cameras broadcasting her every move to millions at home, for whom observing new Chromes--criminals whose skin color has been genetically altered to match the class of their crime--is a sinister form of entertainment. Hannah is a Red for the crime of murder. The victim, says the state of Texas, was her unborn child, and Hannah is determined to protect the identity of the father, a public figure with whom she shared a fierce and forbidden love.
A powerful reimagining of The Scarlet Letter, When She Woke is a timely fable about a stigmatized woman struggling to navigate an America of the not-to-distant future, where the line between church and state has been eradicated, and convicted felons are no longer imprisoned but chromed and released back into the population to survive as best they can. In seeking a path to safety in an alien and hostile world, Hannah knowingly embarks on a journey of self-discovery that forces her to question the values she once held true and the righteousness of a country that politicizes faith and love.

My Confession: I'm a big advocate of modernizing classic literature, as long as it's done tastefully and gives a proper nod to the original. When She Woke intrigued me because of the author's clever realization that The Scarlet Letter could not be reimagined in our society today. Adultery and pregnancy outside of marriage is hardly noteworthy (unless you're MTV or Bravo) and they're both a far cry from what we deem criminal acts. So instead, Hillary Jordan sets her story in a manic, superficial, dystopian universe where the church has become the state. With the infamous Roe v. Wade case overturned, Hannah's abortion turns criminal, and she's punished with the heinous act of chroming--the resolution to high prison expenses. She's sentenced to spend almost 20 years as a red-skinned outcast, her normal life stripped away forever.

The themes of self-discovery were very prominent in this story. It's not just about how Hannah comes to terms with life as a Chrome; we also watch her re-evaluate and question the once-undeniable "truths" that she was brought up to accept without hesitation. The institution of organized religion takes a beating as Jordan shows us a society where religious extremists run the government. Elements of The Scarlet Letter permeate, like Hannah's lover, a prominent and married minister whose image is put in jeopardy when Hannah discovers her pregnancy. And while Hannah drifts from Hester in that she terminates the pregnancy, she does name a hand-sewn doll "Pearl," after her unborn daughter. There are also many times when the story drifts far into its own world and farther away from the one created by Nathaniel Hawthorne. But that's okay--When She Woke becomes about more than the forbidden romance that causes Hannah's pregnancy. It analyzes a world that has truly lost sight of humanity. The concept of "justice" involves breaking a person into madness and destroying the individuality that causes imperfections as well as independent thinking. The picture painted is eye-opening and graphically realistic. I kept compulsively looking at my arms to wonder what would happen if they were suddenly red instead of olive. What would happen to my self-worth, my identity.

I'll admit to not being a fan of every plot twist and turn. The lesbian relationship at the end of the novel didn't really have a place, and I felt that it was thrown into the story for shock value rather than substance. The story is very heavy on its own, and I don't think the addition of Hannah's sexual encounter with another woman adds anything to her character development--in fact, I think it stunts and undermines it. This relationship lacks sincerity and believability, comes out of nowhere, and disappears just as quickly. It just didn't gel with the story as a whole, which was not centered on Hannah's sexuality, despite her pregnancy and illicit affair. Just when you think Hannah has figured out who she is and what she wants, we're confused all over again by her actions.

Recommendation: All in all, I found this to be a worthwhile Nook purchase. It reads well and tackles some deep and spooky questions about where our society is headed. I just wish it had finished as strong as it started.

Rating: 3.3/5