A Night with John and Hank Green

On the evening of January 26th, twas a Thursday, I had the opportunity to attend the Tour de Nerdfighters in Los Angeles. Not only was I in attendance, but I was in charge of it. I had been planning this event for the store I work for since November when I had heard that the publisher, Penguin, had accepted my proposal. This is probably what I looked like when I got that phone call:

This is an expression of both joy and shock.

After I literally jumped for joy in the middle of the store in front of customers, I got down to work. The months proceeding consisted of working and stressing which produced what will be known as the best night I have ever known. Screw you future wedding (if I ever have one) and possible children. John Green FTW!

Review: The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Publication Date: January 10, 2012
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile / Penguin

Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 12, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs... for now.

Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault.

Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind.

Books that make me the most emotional tend to be the hardest for me to review, so I don't know how I'm going to put my thoughts on The Fault in Our Stars in to words, but I will try. Maybe I'll start with adjectives: beautiful, heart-wrenching, heartwarming, hilarious, meaningful...there, that's a good start...

John does a fantastic job of balancing the humor and the dramatic and nothing ever becomes overdone. There is no melodrama which is an easy trap to fall into when writing on this topic. It's all too real of a novel. I immediately fell in love with Hazel and when Augustus entered the scene...GUH. LOVE. BOTH OF THEM. LOVE. I think that's all that I can express on that. The whole cast of characters are well thought out and create a great ensemble. This is definitely a novel that when it ends, you want to know what happens to every single person in the story: Who's dead? Who's happy? Who's dead and happy?

I laughed and cried and laughed and cried and cried and cried and laughed and finished the book sobbing. It is a novel that stays with you long after you read it. Gorgeous.

You know, I wish there was such thing as a John Green theme park. A theme park where I could meet all the characters in his books and have my picture taken with them and put their autographs in a little autograph book. Someone should get on this.