Ever since my brother went off to college, my parents have made a weekly ritual of visiting the public library every Sunday afternoon for an hour and then getting dinner at the same noodle restaurant every time. It's kind of cute. I participate in this ritual whenever I'm at home. As I'm in the midst of MCAT preparations, I've been limiting myself to a treat of one book for leisure reading per week. Even then, I feel guilty about reading. Fortunately, I read like a speed demon and typically finish the books in a single evening.
I've been meaning to read The Fault in our Stars for a very long time. It's one of those rare YA books that has managed to transcend the incriminating label of being "young adult" in mainstream media. Heck, TIME Magazine even listed it as the #1 Fiction Book of 2012. I'd already heard a lot of things about this book before I picked it up from the One-Week Checkout Only section from the Teen Section today. I knew that the protagonist was a cancer patient. I knew it made people around the world cry, cry, and cry. The book had been hyped for me so much already that I was cynical about whether or not it would be able to meet my expectations. After all, despite the fact that my tear ducts are apparently disconnected from the part of my brain that experiences cathartic sorrow, I love a good sad story that doesn't feel like it's pandering for tears. (Which was my main problem with The Notebook, but that's a whole other blog post.)
Well guys, this book is actually pretty good. A review somewhere described it as "an elegiac comedy," which I think describes the flavor of the book in a nutshell. I won't really say anything about the plot, other than the fact that I actually did predict the "twist" in the book. I wonder if it was obvious to other readers, but in my case I kept wondering where on earth John Green could take this story, and as my mind sketched out all the possibilities, it turns out I nailed one of them. Guessing what was coming didn't particularly take away from the story though.
The characters are crisply written, with some really quirky-cute moments that made me grin stupidly as I was reading in the backseat of the car. I'm also a fan of books that tend to muse over philosophical things about life, which might not be everyone's cup of tea but it really worked for me in this book.
As for the whole crying business, I can't think of a book that has made me cry, but oh man -- this one was so close. A blog I follow near daily reviewed this book a while ago, and the reviewer mentioned that she was going to use this one quote for her wedding vows. While I was reading, I kept wondering what kind of a quote would be amazing enough for one's wedding vows. I still don't know for sure what quote she was talking about, but there's this one part.... oh man, it HURT. I don't know if the quote will spoil things, so read at your own risk (I still cut the spoilerish parts out anyway). Here it is:
"There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.... There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get... But... I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days."
2 comments:
loved this book when i read it :)
on a side note, was feeling nostalgic (perhaps the pre-graduation blues?) and realized that i haven't visited your blog in ages after you stopped posting for a period of time. a very lovely re-discovery. miss you.
I heard this reviewed on the BBC this week - going to add it to my 'to do' list.
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