The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

June 10, 2014Leave a comment

Well, I definitely didn’t think I would have another post so quickly after finishing A Dance with Dragons, but here I am!

I started reading The Fault in Our Stars yesterday afternoon. It took me less than 24 hours to get through this book and I was not disappointed.

I decided to start reading it because of all the hype. I want to see the movie and I think there’s something wrong with people who get really excited to see movies, but have not read the books that they are based on. I’m guilty of doing this with the Harry Potter series, but I do plan on reading those eventually.

Anyway, when I started reading The Fault in Our Stars I prepared myself to be disappointed. I thought that the way that the characters acted wasn’t very believable and that, even though there were very “teenage” moments, they seemed too mature for sixteen and seventeen year olds. I’ve seen the argument that they were more mature because they had to deal with more difficult life experiences than normal teenagers, and I guess I can buy that.

Even though I was initially put off by the way they were written, and was worried that I would be the only person who didn’t like this book, I found myself wanting to read on to the next chapter and completely enthralled by this story.

I loved it. I loved the long speeches and how perfect Augustus and Hazel were for each other. I totally bought into the story and cried like everyone said you do. Like ugly cried. More than once. It was great. I even liked the parts with Van Houten, which I was also put-off by. I didn’t think it was believable that these two teenagers would travel to Amsterdam to meet an author, but I let myself believe it because I wanted to believe in a love story like theirs.

I would definitely recommend this book to everyone. I’m going to try to get my sister to read it (and she hates reading), and I’m going to get my grandmother to read it, and then we can all go see the movie together. It was so good.

An Update! Finally

June 3, 2014Leave a comment

I finally finished A Dance With Dragons! Whew, I can’t believe it took me that long…AND that it has taken me so long for a new post.

I could say sorry to my followers (though I’m not really sure how many of you actually pay attention to my posts and reviews *if you do I truly appreciate it!*), but really I need to apologize to myself. I love to read and the past few months I let the stress of school and work get in the way of it.

The fact that A Dance With Dragons was the book that I was “Currently Reading” when I started this blog is embarrassing. I flew through the other books, but to be fair, I was on a break and had absolutely nothing to do. I don’t want to make excuses for myself, but this last semester of college was really stressful. Even though I slacked off in areas of my life that I enjoyed, I’m proud that I graduated with a 3.65 GPA in my final semester as a college undergraduate.

And even though I wasn’t able to get through this book as quickly as I thought I would, I’m also proud to say that I didn’t stop reading it altogether. Many nights when I was so stressed to the point of wanting to cry, I made myself turn off the computer and read at least one chapter of ADWD. It was an escape for me and allowed me to have 30 minutes where I was completely immersed in something other than school.

ANYWAY…I’m going to start talking about what I thought of the book, so if you haven’t read it STOP READING NOW. Seriously, SPOILER ALERT!!!

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A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin

Wow…just, wow. This book was incredible and so many things happened that I can’t even believe. I absolutely loved it and once again GRRM makes me feel like he’s some sort of crazy, evil, creative genius. As someone who loves writing and hopes to be a writer, he just blows my mind. Seriously, how can someone come up with this many plot lines? And they all are completely necessary and essential to wherever this story is going to end.

SERIOUSLY, I’ve never read a chapter from any of the books in the ASOIAF series and thought “GRRM could have done without this, it was a pretty pointless chapter.” These books are so detailed and all of the story lines are so well thought out, that even though I think I know where things are going, I’m shocked and I’m not mad about any of it.

Something that really made me think about all of this was when *SPOILER* Jon was stabbed after announcing to the brothers that he was going to return to Winterfell. After I got over my initial shock (Jon got stabbed! Is he dead?! This can’t happen!), I went online to see how others had reacted. I stumbled upon a site with the theory that Jon is Azor Ahai reborn (salty tears and smoking wounds, plus Melisandre’s visions). I had never even thought about that, but that wasn’t even the craziest thing about it. The site listed all of the theories surrounding Azor Ahai, and I had only thought there were two of them (Stannis and Daenerys). To have so many characters listed under the theories, there had to be some serious planning on GRRM’s part.

Everything has been planned out with so much detail, it’s no wonder it takes him so long to write these books. Reading the ASOIAF series and seeing the theories have made me fall in love with reading and writing again. I can’t wait for The Winds of Winter, and I look forward to seeing what GRRM does with the crazy world he created.

“How to Become a Writer” by Lorrie Moore

April 5, 2014Leave a comment

I thought that the instruction was very clear in Moore’s story. It seemed like she was telling you everything you needed to do to become a writer. The story was also very enjoyable for me. I thought that the stories she was writing for her classes seemed like they were sort of funny, and I wanted to read at least one of them to see what it would be like to read something with no plot. It seemed like she was a really good writer, but she did not understand how to put together a story. Her stories were just ideas for stories and could have probably been edited to have a plot, but no one really helped her to actually put a story together. It was sort of ironic that she was writing about how to be a writer and people were constantly telling her that her writing was not worth reading.

I did not find this story depressing, like others in my class did. Even though she was not successful, she was doing something that she wanted to do and worked really hard to be a writer. Plus, if this is something that we are supposed to believe the character is writing, she was able to write something with a plot.

“Letters to Wendy’s” by Joe Wenderoth

April 4, 2014Leave a comment

This story/series of letters was extremely disturbing to me. Some in my class found it funny, but I think most felt the same as me. If I worked at Wendy’s and received these letters in a comments box, as I assume they were intended to be written for, I would be so freaked out. This man would probably be banned from Wendy’s forever if this was true.

I feel like the whole point of the letters was to shock whoever reads this. Once again I’m a little concerned about my professor and the stories he decides to assign us.

The writing was good and there was a definite flow, but I could not get over how creepy this guy was. I also kind of wish that he wrote more about his life in the letters. I wanted to know if he was in a relationship that wasn’t working out or if he just had some serious issues he was dealing with. He does discuss that a little bit when he writes about his mother spanking him, but I wanted to know more. The whole thing kind of felt like he was just trying to be weird and write about his strange sexual fantasiesSide note: My ex-boyfriend worked for Wendy’s and I honestly could never eat there again after hearing him talk about it. Never eat the chili.

Debbie Harry at the Supermarket by Wayne Koestenbaum

March 18, 2014Leave a comment

Wayne Koestenbaum’s piece “Debbie Harry at the Supermarkey” was very interesting to read, yet sort of strange. I really liked the details that he went into when talking about what he loved about Debbie Harry and her music, but at some point it started to borderline on creepy and stalkerish. I think that writing about something you are so passionate about helps make something that is nonfiction more interesting, and I’m sure Koestenbaum didn’t intend to come off as creepy, but I felt like he maybe went a little too far with his descriptions when watching her walk down the street.

I wish that there was more about her at the supermarket. I understand that this is nonfiction, and hopefully he didn’t follow her around the supermarket, but from the title I thought that there would be more of a story about that. After a while, I just wanted to know why he chose to start with the image of her in the supermarket, rather than just saying that he lived near her and would sometimes see her walking down the street. I have always thought that nonfiction essays like this one should start with the topic or whatever is interesting about the piece and then gone into further detail about why it means so much to them or why a reader should care. Even though the author did go into more detail, it felt more like he was talking about her career than why her music was really important to him in ways other than learning about women.

Me, On Shuffle by Chuck Klosterman

March 15, 2014Leave a comment

I really enjoyed reading this essay. It was another essay that was assigned to me by my Creative Acts professor for our non-fiction unit, but it was incredibly relatable. I think most people can relate to not knowing what to say when asked what kind of music you like. Generally, I just say whatever band I’m really into at the time or I lie. Sometimes I say everything but country, but that’s not really true. It’s a complicated question and it’s hard to pin point exactly what you like about the songs that you like.

I think that Chuck Klosterman does a really nice job of actually writing about what he likes about songs. It’s kind of funny in a way, because I didn’t expect him to do that. But, it also makes the article much more interesting and I found myself thinking “Yeah, I like that part of that song too.” It’s pretty great when a writer gets you to care about what he’s writing like that.

The Fourth State of Matter by Jo Ann Beard

March 14, 20141 Comment

This story was really sad, but so good. When I first saw how long it was, I was initially put off by the length, but I read through it so quickly I did not even realize that I was at the end.

Everything in the story is heartbreaking. She experiences so much loss that you kind of hope something good happens just to make up for it. Of course, this never happens, but I’m glad that her dog did not die at the end as well. That would have been really upsetting to read.

Her descriptions and the way that she told the story made it flow so well. It was like I was involved in the story and I could picture every little detail that she mentioned. It made me feel like I could relate to her and that made it so much more emotional. I have a little dog who is still pretty much a puppy and I could not imagine what I would do or how I would feel about the possibility of losing him forever. It would be devastating.

In class, we talked about how it is kind of a touchy thing to write about events like the mass shooting in this essay. Tons of people were probably affected by it and could be upset that this woman would write about it and essentially make a profit from the story. I’m not exactly sure how I feel about this. I guess when you are writing about something that not only affects you but affects others you have to make the decision to share it or not.

Letters from Majorca by J.D. Daniels

March 13, 2014Leave a comment

I very much enjoyed reading J.D. Daniels essay “Letters from Majorca.” Parts of it jumped around a bit and I wasn’t exactly sure where he was or what time frame it was in the story, but I do not think that it took away from it.

When I think of non-fiction pieces, I usually think of long-form biographies or memoirs. I think this essay really shows that you can write a piece of non-fiction and it can still be interesting. I especially liked how it sort of felt like he was jumping through different memories that would bring him to another topic.

When I write, I often feel like things that I’m writing about remind me of something else and I want to spend time talking about that, but I’ve never been successful at doing so. This essay is successful in doing that and actually made it really pretty great.

Before Adrien Grenier Was Famous by Sarah Sweeney

March 12, 2014Leave a comment

I thought that this story was very interesting. In my class before we read this piece, we talked a little bit about adding fiction to non-fiction. While I was reading this story I wondered how much of it was really true, not only with Adrien Grenier, but also with some of the other men that she and Evie called. The story was still believable enough that I found myself accepting everything as fact by the end.

I liked that this story really showed what the bond was between these two friends and how their relationship dissolved over time when they no longer had that bond. It was an interesting point in the story when the narrator was called out for being deranged and she realized that she was very much deranged. I don’t think that is something that people really think about when they do these types of things. I think they usually just do it for fun or because they got away with doing it the first time

I also liked the way that Sarah Sweeney incorporated dialogue into the story without the full quotes and saying “he said” or “she said.” When writing a non-fiction piece, it would be almost impossible to remember exactly what a conversation was like and this definitely was a successful way to get around having to recall exact conversations.

The Prophet from Jupiter by Tony Earley

March 11, 2014Leave a comment

This story was very monotonous and had elements of a stream of consciousness that made it sort of hard to follow. The narrator would be talking about the present in one sentence and then go to a memory from the past in the next sentence without any sort of transition. I had to pay closer attention to the little details than I usually do and had to do a little more work on my part to figure out what time frame he was talking about.

Even though it was hard to follow, the story was good. I felt bad for the narrator who had experienced all of this and seemed like he was having trouble accepting all of the things that were going on around him. He was very good at remembering details and conversations that he had with people. I think it would be difficult to have this monotonous stream of consciousness and still produce a story that creates a bit of emotion, but Tony Earley was successful in doing that with me.

Kayla Cropper

Category: My Resolution