The Fault in Our Stars

 

When it comes to books, I’m not usually a crier. Movies of course. Plays occasionally. A well-done commercial has even evoked a tear a time or two. There is a specific formula to get me to cry. An animal dies (dear God Marley and Me just about killed me), families being separated forever, lovers staying together despite all odds (end of the Notebook, end of Titanic) and of course someone dying of some sort of terminal disease. Amazingly, John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars hits on the majority of those triggers, provoking tears for at least the last 50 pages if not more and yet never for a moment did the story feel contrived or formulaic in any way.

            I’m already a huge fan of John Green and his take on young adult literature. He writes about teenagers like they are actually people, not trying to teach them something but writing truly for them. It’s a refreshing take on a genre that is littered with generic coming of age stories and paranormal romances. Green tackles true love in a realistic way, facing the challenges of life with another person with honesty instead of ideals. He doesn’t shy away from sexuality, but doesn’t rely on it to sell his novels or legitimize his characters relationships. Green writes about people and the tragedies and triumphs that we all face throughout life, and he does so with humor, elegance, grace (never thought I’d ever use that adjective) relevance and skill.

            By now you might actually want to hear about the book, ‘eh? The Fault in Our Stars centers around Hazel, a teenage girl with terminal lung cancer and Augustus, a teen who lost one of his legs to cancer and is in a shaky state of remission. The two meet at a support group for “cancer kids” that both Hazel and Augustus view with a hearty does of disdain. Their attraction to each other is immediate and the novel follows that developing relationship, as they navigate the waters of first love while confronting their own fast approaching mortality. Neither Hazel nor Gus (as Augustus is called) is the type to wallow in despair, but they are both deeply intellectual. They think deeper about life, particularly Gus, and both connect with a novel called An Imperial Affliction, whose author is a mysterious man from Amsterdam who they begin to have contact with. At this point I struggle to say more about the plot without ruining many of the nuanced twists and turns that Green has written, and so I’ll speak broadly.

            Hazel and Gus give the reader an inside look at cancer and the kids who suffer from it. They joke about “cancer perks,” things like signed basketballs and special treatment at restaurants and theme parks, using their humor to mask how much they hate being treated differently. Above all Green emphasizes that despite suffering from cancer, Gus and Hazel are teenagers and they do have lives outside of fighting and being strong, all while knowing they will die. They have wonderful banter back and forth that definitely elicited chuckles from me throughout the novel and as the pages began to dwindle the tears began to flow as I realized my time with them was coming to an end.

            The Fault in Our Stars is a devastatingly beautiful novel, filled with humor, compassion, and insight and above all, everlasting love. Remember, it isn’t easy for a book to make me cry and this one managed it handily, and therefore you should all go read it as well and let yourself experience such emotion for yourself. Once you’ve done that, go read everything else John Green has written and follow his YouTube videos. He is a remarkable author who I have tremendous respect for and I look forward to reading the rest of his work.

The Typewriter Girl

When I first picked up Allison Atlee's The Typewriter Girl, I was so excited to read it. The book seemed like the perfect trifecta of noveldom. A pretty pastel washed cover featuring Victorian era clothing and the open ocean, a sassy lower class English girl overcoming class differences to find love and the author was a Bread Loaf grad! Always one to support my fellow Bread Loafers, I bought the book, brought it home and made my way very, very slowly through it. New job, exhausting hours, it was just hard to stay awake and read once I snuggled into bed. I am sad this was my reading process for this book, for I think that is perhaps the reason The Typewriter Girl really didn’t do it for me. When I first picked up Alison Atlee’s

            When I say didn’t do it for me, I mean that the book never really seemed to click in place. The protagonist’s actions seemed hurried and disjointed, each portion of the story stretching out over too long a time or not enough time at all. The more I read, the more I felt that I was being presented with stock characters instead of new people to meet and enjoy. Elisabeth Dobson, our heroine, is a strong lower class English girl who has found herself in one too many sticky situations and now sees her job at a seaside entertainment resort her last chance. She has modern ideas about sexuality that are refreshing for the time, but otherwise her sensibilities don’t set her apart from the rest of the Eliza Doolittle types in literature. Elisabeth’s object of affection is Mr. Jones, a Welsh engineer who is even more of a stereotype than Elisabeth. Jones has pulled himself up by his bootstraps, overcome class differences and the snobbery of the aristocracy to make his way in life and we never get to forget that. The love story that develops between Elisabeth and Mr. Jones moves quickly and predictably, with only a few surprises thrown in to keep things interesting. I was sad that I figured out the ending far before the final pages.

            Timing and plot aside, Atlee has provided quite the cast of characters to keep the reader entertained, if not to actually aid the plot along. We get the rough and tumble workers of the seaside town, the savvy hoteliers who employ Elisabeth, the kind family who she lives with and the aristocracy who are painted broadly as out of touch, shallow and rather conniving. I found myself more intrigued by some of the secondary characters than by our protagonist.

            Atlee does have a wonderful sense of how to create a scene. Perhaps if one looks at the novel as a set of scenes instead of a tightly flowing plot things will work out better for them. There are moments when Atlee perfectly states what being in love is like, or how it feels to lose a child or the hidden sides to all conversations and interactions. The scenery is treated nicely, not overdone but used to add to the particular scene being tackled.

            I fear I am beginning to ramble and write with the same disjointed feeling the novel gave me. Again, I’ll state that part of that feeling came from reading over too fragmented a length of time. For a first novel, I give Atlee credit for not being afraid to take chances, even if they end up falling into the realms of predictable or awkward. Overall she has presented a story that aims to charm and entertain and I will grudgingly admit she has achieved that. Give The Typewriter Girl a chance; let Elisabeth try to charm you and Mr. Jones seduce you. Who knows, they might just succeed.