The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Overall, what kind of a feeling did you have after reading a few paragraphs of this work? midway? after finishing the work?
Well for a person who wasn't really excited about reading this, I was pleasantly surprised that I developed an appreciate for John Green's writing. As a teacher, I definitely saw how this could be used in the classroom and there were really great parts that could become teachable moments or used as a mentor text. As a reader, I still have a lot of issues with the novel and in all honesty, this book doesn't motivate me to read Paper Towns or any of his other novels. I really hated the cheesiness of how the Hazel and Augustus meet because Augustus was cliche in my opinion with his over flirtation upon first site. BUT I realize that this mimics Romeo and Juliet. I can see its value in the classroom especially for teaching Romeo and Juliet, but I still haven't been converted to a John Green follower; perhaps after I finish the novel! One of the things I enjoyed was how he kind of talks about literature through these characters and makes comments about the big "L" versus the little "l". I was look at it through the lens of a teacher and saw some of the things I could use as a mentor text for discussions on canonical texts. I also liked how John Green approached cancer. I watched my mom battle cancer and even though I feel like my family dynamics were not even close the one in the book, I still felt that he got some things right. Some of his lines really were poignant for this tackling this subject; however, he does put in a lot of humor which is nice for both young and old readers. Side note: I've never seen the movie so I wonder how accurate they made it. I'm interested in seeing how the book ends, seeing that these two are "star crossed lovers."
I appreciate how you are reading like a writer--he does write well. He writes smart. And he creates characters who are smart. And he makes smart cool--which I really appreciate as a teacher.
ReplyDeleteI really like John Green as a person, and I enjoyed Paper Towns, but when I listened to the audio book for The Fault in Our Stars I hated it. I feel like Green writes these characters too smart. It's like he's trying to hard. I do think you should give Paper Towns a shot, and definitely check out his YouTube videos that he does with his brother.
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