TFIOS

Many people know of John Green, whether it's through his books, or Vlogbrothers, or the nerdfighter community (who, contrary to popular belief, do not fight nerds, but are nerds who fight worldsuck. Or other such things). And, what with the upcoming The Fault in our Stars and Paper Towns movies, he's been getting a lot of attention.

My friend Emily introduced me to the nerdfighter community last spring break, when she "kidnapped" me for a gathering in DC. (Actually, she'd tried with the Vlogbrothers videos years ago, but they were lost on me then.) So while I became fairly active in the NotGDCA community, and kept up with the Vlogbrothers videos that published after my introduction, it took me over a year to actually get around to reading any of John Green's (in)famous books.

I say that because I've heard a very wide spectrum of opinions on his books, especially TFIOS. I've heard that TFIOS is the best book, or the saddest, or that people dislike it because Hazel and Gus do not sound like teenagers but adults with meta thoughts about the complexity of life. And it was specifically the "omg I cried the entire time" that kept me from reading it for so long. I do not do well with sad books -- If I Stay definitely impacted my decision to avoid TFIOS, since I had such a hard time dealing with that book and how depressing it was. (I have not talked to anybody else who has read If I Stay, which is sad. I think it is just as beautiful of a book, if not even more emotional than TFIOS.)

But, because I wanted to enlist Emily's help and make a TFIOS book trailer for Video Production, I had to suck it up and actually read the book.

I didn't cry.

At all.

(To be honest, back when I still went to youth group, we watched Passion of the Christ, and I was the only one in the room that did not turn into a mess. I think I'm just heartless.)

I texted Emily when I finished and asked if I was a bad person for not actually crying, and surprisingly, she replied "nah." She has her own signed copy of the book, and cried during the entire trailer tacked to the beginning of the Divergent movie, so I was curious as to how she'd respond when I wasn't such a wreck like everyone else said they were when they finished.

And I think that part of my not-crying is because I generally knew how it was going to end. I knew one of them was going to die, so I knew not to get overly attached to either of them (since I always forgot which one ended up dying). It also took me a while to warm up to the book, because I remembered more of the criticisms I'd seen of the book than "omg I loved it, it was perfect" reactions that didn't have a why attached.

I did feel sad about the ending, though, don't get me wrong. It still hurt to read that sort of loss. But I also enjoyed reading about Hazel and Gus's relationship, and how they got all sorts of meta with each other. And I also liked all of the quotes I've seen plastered everywhere on the internet, as well as the more unused ones. (I actually posted my favorites to my twitter while I read it in Video Production.) I enjoyed the fact that they had a relationship that wasn't entirely physical. Most YA books have tons of makeout and sex scenes, and while TFIOS did have some PDA, it wasn't often. They mostly just talked and spent time with each other. I could identify more with their relationship shown through deep statements and dry humor than many I've read that are all just "I want to touch you. Almost all the time. Because I like you." It wasn't like the two liked each other simply for physical attributes. They spent time with each other for more reasons than just "the other person was cute."

I'm probably going to cry while watching the movie, though, especially if I see it with Emily. Reading about love and loss and picturing the people distantly in your head is vastly different from watching actors make it real. And I'm going to have a hard time taking their relationship seriously when all I can picture right now is the two actors as siblings in Divergent. I have a stronger (albeit bipolar) relationship with the Divergent trilogy than TFIOS.

Bringing up criticisms I've often seen: as for the language of Hazel and Gus, yes, they don't sound like teenagers. This book was also written by an author removed from his teenager years by a good span of time. Besides, I'm almost entirely certain there have to be some teenagers that sound like those two -- whether they're likable people or not, that's up for discussion. I could hear a lot of the things those two said in Green's voice -- whether that's because I've truly heard him say them, or I can just picture it due to my familiarity with his speech, I don't know for sure. But I know as a writer that characters often reflect your own speech patterns, intentional or not. Now, Green could have definitely created unique voices for the two characters, but that would have removed all of the "deep" quotes that the book has that get plastered all over tumblr and everything else in the world. As for the plot and how "boring" it is: the point isn't to have an interesting, action-packed story. It's to show the progression of a relationship between the two. And relationships don't build steadily, they often stay exactly the same for a while before anything happens.

Criticisms I've seen but cannot comment on:  how the two could potentially be "carbon copies" of characters in other John Green books, as this is the only one I've read so far. However, I feel like the same sense of meta-ness / deep thoughts would apply to them as well, which accounts for the similarity. Also, there is the debate about how it handles the topic of cancer, but I have not read any other books dealing with a similar topic, nor have I really had any sort of experience with cancer in teenagers. But, if you have, I would really suggest looking into this aspect of TFIOS.

TL;DR TFIOS didn't exactly reflect what I was expecting based on what all I've heard. And I really liked that. I think it was a good book, and I'm looking forward to seeing the movie. I also can say that it's not "perfect" like some people have claimed / implied; TFIOS has both strong points and weaknesses. So while I can't tell anyone whether it's truly a "cry" book or not, I think the lighthearted and banter-y part of the novel makes it worth reading.

(As a side note. I read some 1 or 2 star reviews on Goodreads, and while I can see their points as a whole, the examples they use are kind of poor. Hazel questioning why certain foods are only regarded as "breakfast" foods isn't pretentious -- that's just wondering out loud. I wonder about the reasoning behind things all the time. Does that make me pretentious? I don't think so. Then again, nobody's said anything about it to me. Also, I have not seen anybody refer to Hazel and Gus negatively while using a word other than "pretentious".)