Book ReviewBlog 2: Book 37: Paper Towns

   I started reading Paper Towns (John Green) Wednesday morning around 8:45 am and finished it Friday afternoon at about 1:00 pm. It took me about 12 hours to read this book in the span of 2 and a half days. Give or take. It was great.

   I avoided reading this book for about two and a half years. Give or take. 

   It was a great book, and that's all I had heard about it for years and years. So why did it take me SO LONG to read such a good book? That's an interesting question.

   I don't like knock knock jokes. I don't like most jokes, really. I don't like feeling stupid or not knowing what comes next, or what's supposed to come next. I hate books that make me feel like I don't know what's going to happen, but I should. Books that tease me, act like they're smarter than me when I'm already a smart girl. And it's not even usually the book's fault, it's the author feeling superior to his or her readers. (I think an excellent example of this is Peter Van Houten.) So I didn't want to read a book that would act too smart for me. 

The (infuriating) Peter Van Houten

   But I don't like stupid books either. I hate when stupid people write stupid books with stupid characters that get themselves into stupid situations and act stupidly about it all. I have no patience for people that won't help themselves, why would I want to waste my time reading about someone like that? So I didn't want a book that wasn't going to live up to its hype. 

And that's it. That's really it. The Hype. 

A book like this, a John Green Book, that has a lot of hype. 

And it scares the crap out of me.

What if I don't like it?

What if I like it and I'm just another of the fan girls raving about another over-hyped book that actually lives up to its expectation?

What if it really is too smart for me?

What if I like the characters too much and would rather have them as friends?

What if I want to be them?

What if I hate the characters, but love the book?

It's a lot of personal doubt that goes into this line of (completely ridiculous) thinking. But when I'm thinking it, it doesn't feel so ridiculous. (This isn't just about books - FYI) It's just another way to talk myself out of doing something I want because I'm scared I won't like it as much as I want to, or as much as I feel like I should. And those are really two totally different issues, one is personal, one is external. 

But both are problems I have, with myself. And they are dealt with, for me, in the same way: take a breath, calm the eff down, and do it.

Because at the end of the day, or the 2.5 year period as it may be, I'll have ended up reading a really great book.

Book ReviewBlog 1: Book 36 - This Is How You Lose Her

Front Cover of This Is How You Lose Her

Earth shattering. I don't know if I've ever said that about a book and meant it like I do with this one. It is easily the best book I've read this year. Sure I've liked books more, Clockwork Prince (by Cassandra Clare) had me crying in public, Dance with Dragons (by George R. R. Martin) I finished impressively quickly considering I was working when I read the majority if it. Like actually at work. I think about Beautiful Creatures (by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl) all the time, play scenes from it, lines from it, in my head over and over, months after I've finished it. 

But this one is the best. This book floored me. Like how one of my coworkers was genuinely speechless after seeing an unbelievably hot girl. Or how sunsets makes me close my eyes and bask sometimes, even when I've seen a thousand. It took my breath away, it left me speechless, but mostly, it made me think.

It made me think about love, it is the main theme in the novel, but it really went deeper than I would have expected. It was romantic love, sexual love, paternal love (and lack thereof), brotherly love, and cheating. Lots and lots of cheating. 

It made me think about my own writing, feel like I will never be that good. And that there are just some people that really are that good. Made me remember Greg-I-Sing-The-Body-Electric, remember his writing, that he is one of those people whose writing just knocks you out, punching a fabulous hole in your gut.

Made me think that I'm not even sure I want to be that good. There was a line from a bio on Wikipedia that said someone was the rare writing artist who did some of his best work after winning a Pulitzer. But how do you even handle being that good? How do you not feel like a god? Not think you alone have captured what it means to be human? To live? To love? Isn't that what a Pulitzer means? That you have mastered your art? And if said art had been mastered, what more is there for anyone to do? Especially yourself? How do you exceed your own mastery? 

I think a lot about Hope. It's how I justify all the soppy movies I watch and shitty tween books I slog through and endless seasons of shit television I put up with. I like hope, I believe in hope. But this book is not hopeful. Almost every section ofttimes ends with a perfect last line and a gaping hole. It's difficult and frustrating and delicious and thrilling and achingly personal. And what is personal and truthful to the extent that this is, is rarely hopeful. So that certainly isn't why I like it. It actually made me dislike it at times. 

Maybe it really is just incredibly well written. Yunior has this enticing voice, and especially after spending more than a year hanging around halfway hood guys, I thought his voice was spot on, true and truthful, passionate and ingenuous while wholly blown away by how much of an asshole he is. And by the time he realizes what a complete cock up he's made of his life, he has absolutely no idea what to do about it, or if he even wants this life at all. 

Made me think about inspiration. Because books like this rock you, rock you off course, or onto it. And sometimes, maybe, they can rock you into your own kind of greatness 

This is love. And this is how you lose her.