Rated YA-MA discussion

I'm surprised Isa hasn't been all over this topic. I have Looking for Alaska on my list to read this month, am am excited to read my first Green book.

I want to read Will Grayson Will Grayson as my next John Green book. I really liked Looking for Alaska alot.

I also have WG,WG loaded on my ereader and have been looking for an excuse to read it. So maybe you'll motivate me.

It'd make a good buddy read.

Stacia `future pirate wrote: "I'm surprised Isa hasn't been all over this topic. I have Looking for Alaska on my list to read this month, am am excited to read my first Green book."

JOHN GREEN! ALL his books are great, but it's his KATHERINES that I re-read when I need a good laugh. WGwg was also good, but mainly because of TINY. PAPER TOWNS was the more serious out of all of them (for me...) but LOOKING is emotional too but funny too. AND there's another one coming out ( ) the Jan 2012, and I DESPERATLY want it! (Actually I want all the books that he's contributed to like LET IT SNOW etc but havent seen them here ... yet.)

There she is. :)

Wendy, I'd so be down for using it as a buddy read in the future...maybe after we rotate in a couple of adult books since we did a few YA's back to back (not counting GK 6, which wasn't planned).

Isa - Looking was emotional but still really funny! I really loved it. I'll have to look into the Katherine book, since you said it was good.

Amy - I agree with waiting for a bit and hitting some other genre's first. I'm in no hurry, I don't even have it yet, haha.

All of John Green's books are awesome.

Katherines is more quirky/funny.

Alaska and Paper Towns are more serious with similar themes, but handle them in different ways. Alaska had more laugh out loud moments for me and is probably my favorite of his.

I haven't read Will Grayson yet, though I have it.

And I preordered The Fault in Our Stars the second it went up on Amazon. If you pre-order it, it will be signed. He's signing by hand the entire first printing. Crazy, wonderful author.

Jenny wrote: "All of John Green's books are awesome.

Katherines is more quirky/funny.

Alaska and Paper Towns are more serious with similar themes, but handle them in different ways. Alaska had more laugh out..."

Jenny, about hithe author signing pre-orders, THANKS for telling us that! I'd love to get one that is signed :)

I love that he's signing all books from his first printing of , I'm going to put in for my pre-order today.

Okay, so it took me 2 months past when I posted to read , but I finally got to it!

I liked the book. I'm not sure if I didn't get as choked up because of another book I'd read recently with a similar instance happening, so I felt sort of numb to it. But...I still really liked the book.

Definitely going to read another Green endeavor. Will probably try next.

YAY! John Green is a legend of a man. He reads the first two chapters of TFIOS on youtube, and it sounds brilliant. It's about two teens who meet in a cancer survivors group and begin to embark on a relationship...
So far it's funny and heartwarming.
I still re-read PT though, and will re-read Alaska if only for all the famous last words I have yet to learn.
Although I was bummed to find out Thomas Edison's 'it's very beautiful over there' was actually him giving his family the finger for not sending him to the better respite home. :P

Two teens who meet in a cancer survivors group? Why do I have the feeling that it's not going to end well for one of them? Cancer doesn't stay in remission for everyone...

I know... :( It's going to break my heart, I just know it, And worse than that, I bet it's Augustus Waters who breaks my heart :(
It amuses me that his initials are 'AW', because he's so cute from what I've heard so far :)

Also, it's meant to be his best, most heart-wrenching book so far, so I advise Kleenex and chocolate for everyone upon reading.

Chocolate does make things better. Good call.

Yup! That's how I roll!

The chapters he reads on YouTube are brilliant. He can make even cancer funny. But I am also going to be prepared to have my heart crushed when I read it.

I stumbled upon a book discussion about Looking for Alaska and someone asked an interesting question :

Only click spoiler if you've read the book.

(view spoiler)[Do you think Alaska intentionally committed suicide, or was the accident merely an accident caused by recklessness? (hide spoiler)]

I think not being able to guess one way or the other is sort of the point. That you can't really know her. That there's no answer.

Hmmmm, Jenny I think you're right in thats what Green intended. For us not to know.

My theory is that (view spoiler)[it wasn't intentional and she didn't cause the accident with the purpose to commit suicide. But I think her reckless actions were intentional... if that makes sense. If she went out going 'Im going to commit suicide' I'm not sure if I think that's the way she would have done it. I do think she acted in ways that were intentionally disasterous because she was so incredibly unhappy (hide spoiler)].

I think Alaska was like a bright, burning Flame, (view spoiler)[ and that eventually, that fire had to go out, so she had to live a short, but eventful life. But at least she lived while she was alive, if that makes sense. (hide spoiler)]
That's actually a really interesting question.

Oh I definitely agree that it was the author's full intention for us not to know one way or the other. I do think it was written in such a way that it would cause reflection.

OK. Yup. Fault has me in fangirl mode. I finished it hours ago and have been meaning to read something else, but I keep on going back to it. Awesome.

Isamlq wrote: "OK. Yup. Fault has me in fangirl mode. I finished it hours ago and have been meaning to read something else, but I keep on going back to it. Awesome."

Heck yeah, it is. I loved it so freaking much.

Just finished TFIOS. *sniffles*

Back to Alaska (view spoiler)[ I always assumed Alaska committed suicide. But that might just be because my cousin committed suicide when he was 15 (ETA originally said 16. Actually we buried him on his 16th birthday). (hide spoiler)]

TFIOS was a good one. I actually liked that there was quite a bit of humor for it being such a serious book.

I actually like Wendy's answer about the question. It made sense that maybe she was (view spoiler)[not necessarily choosing consciously to harm herself, but moreso subconsciously living in a reckless manner, sort of letting the chips fall where they would. (hide spoiler)]

Right, exactly. I mean, (view spoiler)[if Alaska was setting out with the intention to kill herself, I can't believe she would have done it in a way that may have killed some random person. But I think that she lived her life in a way that embraced death, part of her hoping it would happen (hide spoiler)].

That makes the most sense of any theory I've heard.

Angie, sorry that I never came back and commented on WG, WG.

It's so sad but I was completely unaware that there were two PoV's until the meetup of the two Will Graysons. The book copy I had was missing most of the chapter headings and I thought at first that the changing text was just a formatting error. It's probably sad that I didn't catch enough of a distinction between the two lives to see that it was two separate people. What caught me was when they both got texts from Tiny and Maura and I realized it wasn't the same person getting both texts!

I liked the book but it wasn't nearly as good as the other 2 JG books. I'm not sure how much of the book was JG and how much was David Levithan though. I wonder if they each took 1 of the PoV's.

I have not read it yet but I believe John Green wrote the straight Will Grayson POV

@Stacia, on your "I wonder if they each took 1 of the PoV's."

I agree with Cassi. I've read some of DL's work and "wg" sounds more in line with what his done before; "WG" felt more like Green.

Perhaps they did the same thing that David Levithan did in Every You, Every Me. If I remember it right, there he wrote in response to(?) photos (that were actually included in said book.)

I actually liked Will Grayson a lot better than the other John Green books I read.

I do think each author wrote one point of view. The straight Will Grayson definitely seems like John Green's writing style.

That's interesting. Especially since I didn't really care for straight WG's PoV, even though I like John Green. I preferred gay WG. He was funnier.

I liked gay WG better too! But Tiny was my favorite character overall.

John Green wrote the odd chapters and David Levithan wrote the even chapters.

You expect me to break something down by numbers?!?

Odd chapters were straight WG, even was gay WG with the all lower case writing. :)

:)

Haha, my book is still packed up and unread so I wasn't sure of anything but the numbers. :P

It's okay. I've just been in a silly mood today.

I went to a reading with John Green and David Levithan not long after WG, WG came out. They read a scene together, which was hilarious. They talked about the their writing process, and they did things like I think David picked the first name Will and John picked the last name Greyson. John picked where the two WGs would meet, I believe.

I totally just finished it, lol, and reviewed! I really really liked it. Stacia, I read your review and I agree that I was only eh about the musical, though I think that it was great for Tiny. And through a good majority of the book I kind of thought Tiny was a jerk.

In the end though, I loved all of it. Because I think it was about love and relationships (not just the musical, but the book). It resonated with me and my own friendships. I love John Green, and now I want to read something else by David Levithan, lmao.

Emily, one of my favorite parts of reading the book was at the end they had a conversation about the book and how they wrote it. It was really interesting.

Boy Meets Boy is my favorite by David Levithan on his own. I'm also about to read his adult title, Lover's Dictionary.

Emily wrote: "Boy Meets Boy is my favorite by David Levithan on his own. I'm also about to read his adult title, Lover's Dictionary."

I've read a bunch of DL's. I thought Lover's Dictionary a clever and accurate take on stages of relationships. I have to say though that I love his collabs with Rachel Cohn: especially, Nick and Norah then Dash and Lily's Book of Dares. His work alone? I've only read Every You and Every Me left which left me wanting something more (though him explaining his writing process in that was interesting.)

On WG wg, I felt that the ending was way over the top especially if you consider the emo feel most of the book had (I hope I'm recalling it right because I read it maybe two years ago on Christmas.) TINY is my favorite character in it but what I love more about it is how unexpectedly funny some moments were. I can still recall the first line about picking friends, noses and friends' noses!

I've always wondered about the Rachel Cohn books. We should probably add a topic for her at some point, since her books are well known.

I was curious about Dash and Lily but because I hated Nick and Norah as a movie (hated would be putting it gently...loathed with the fire of a thousand suns would probably be more accurate), I hesitate to read any of her books. Obviously, books and movies are very rarely that close in similarities but still...

Might need someone to tell me what's good about her books, so I can see if she's worth checking out.

I keep eyeing those books too, but something stops me from getting them.

I liked Dash and Lily, but haven't read Nick and Norah, so I can't comment on similarities. What didn't you like about Nick and Norah? That may help me figure out if the same is true with Dash & Lily.

Not knowing anything else, I'd say if you like John Green and don't mind your teens as fairly intellectual, it's worth trying.

It's hard to say since the movie characters might not come across even remotely the same as the book characters but I was not a fan of either of the main characters. The girl had an attitude which bothered me and the chemistry was horrible. As well, the story itself didn't impress me but I couldn't really tell you why. I failed to find myself caring about their troubles and adventures.