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The Bookish Fairy

Young adult, magical realism, and every book in between infused with fairy dust...

The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding

January 15, 2018

The Dreadful Tale of Prosper ReddingThe Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding by Alexandra Bracken
Published by Disney-Hyperion on September 5, 2017
Genres: fantasy, Paranormal
Pages: 362
Buy on Amazon, Buy on Barnes & Noble, Buy on Books & Books
Goodreads
four-stars

"I would say it's a pleasure to meet thee, Prosperity Oceanus Redding, but truly, I only anticipate the delights of destroying thy happiness."

Prosper is the only unexceptional Redding in his old and storied family history — that is, until he discovers the demon living inside him. Turns out Prosper's great-great-great-great-great-something grandfather made — and then broke — a contract with a malefactor, a demon who exchanges fortune for eternal servitude. And, weirdly enough, four-thousand-year-old Alastor isn't exactly the forgiving type.

The fiend has reawakened with one purpose — to destroy the family whose success he ensured and who then betrayed him. With only days to break the curse and banish Alastor back to the demon realm, Prosper is playing unwilling host to the fiend, who delights in tormenting him with nasty insults and constant attempts trick him into a contract. Yeah, Prosper will take his future without a side of eternal servitude, thanks.

Little does Prosper know, the malefactor's control over his body grows stronger with each passing night, and there's a lot Alastor isn't telling his dim-witted (but admittedly strong-willed) human host.

From #1 New York Times best-selling author Alexandra Bracken comes a tale of betrayal and revenge, of old hurts passed down from generation to generation. Can you ever fully right a wrong, ever truly escape your history? Or will Prosper and Alastor be doomed to repeat it?

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Catfairy’s Bookmix

My personal Halloweenie playlist along with some Disney Haunted Mansion instrumentals for your spooky pleasure!

Catfairy’s First Thoughts

If this book doesn’t give you all the Halloween feels and makes you want to buy your round-trip ticket to Salem, then I don’t know what book will! This is my first Alexandra Bracken book and I am pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed reading it! Jesse the Reader was one of the BookTubers that recommended this book for Halloween and I am so glad that I picked it up!

The setting of this book is what really sucked me into this book more than anything! I am a sucker for any Halloweenie books that are set in Massachusetts! My dream trip is to go to Salem, Massachusetts and be a part of all those corny witchy tours and definitely see the Hocus Pocus house since it’s my fave Halloween movie of all time! Dream come true people!

Being a Miami girl, whose around perpetual sunshine all the time I always yearn to live in a place that actually has a true fall season…. There is just something about the fall season that just makes me so darn happy and I would love to be immersed in the true fall season while reading this falltastic book! This book will put you right into the fall mood and will inspire you to go visit some pumpkin patches while eating fried pumpkin leaves along the way!

Catfairy’s Bookcasting

Prosper Redding played by Michael Campion

via GIPHY

I am choosing him mainly because I am on a Full House kick and I think he would exemplify perfectly what it means to be an outsider. Plus, it would be pretty darn funny to see how he reacts to the demon living inside of him!

 

Nell played by Rowan Blanchard

via GIPHY

She seems to have that spunkiness that Nell exudes and I think that she and Michael would make an adorkable team especially for the second book!

 

Alastor played by Steve Martin

via GIPHY

I think that this gif explains it all as to why he would do amazing at playing the role of Alastor! I am sure he could make me laugh as much or even more than Alastor did in this novel!

 

Toad played by @charliechuchi

Since Toad is technically a changeling my cat would be the perfect Toad since he is used to being tortured in many different costumes! Case in point below!

Pop Culture Reference

via GIPHY

This book gave me all the Hocus Pocus fall feels!

Catfairy’s Final Thoughts

Alexandra Bracken’s writing is just so impeccably detailed! This book was the perfect fall blend of pumpkin spicey goodness!

The story was so unique in every way and one of the other elements of this story that stood out was the characters! I absolutely loved Alastor! He has that whole Disney villain kind of personality! How can you not resist a demon that sings songs like, “Pull off their fingers and toe,” to the tune of My Country Tis of Thee? Not to mention who can forget the cat bat named Toad?! It literally flies and I love how the cat has quite the strong personality!

Since the publisher of the book is Disney Hyperion it also has elements of that good old Disney magic! There was a scene that seemed very familiar to the Haunted Mansion ride where Alastor goes into the cemetery that has hilarious gravestones inscribed, “Poor little Susie, her death was a doozy.” The cemetery scene just gave me a wave of nostalgia and I just adored it!

Alexandra Bracken killed it when creating this story and I can officially crown her the queen of fall but I would have liked to have seen fewer descriptions. Even though, I loved how descriptive her writing was at times it felt excessive. Since she is writing a second book for this story, I don’t think she had to reveal so much in the first book. There were times where the descriptions slowed down the story. Also, I think the story doesn’t necessarily fit the mold of middle-grade but I believe that middle grade and YA readers would enjoy it immensely. This book ended in such a shocking way and I am so intrigued to see where the characters are going to end up in the second book!

Any thoughts about Alexandra Bracken’s middle-grade novel The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding? Leave a comment and tell me your thoughts below!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

four-stars

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Filed Under: Reviews by Author, Reviews by Title Tagged: disney fall feels, disney villain, fall feels, pumpkin spicey

An Abundance of Katherines

December 3, 2017

An Abundance of KatherinesAn Abundance of Katherines by John Green
Published by Dutton Books on September 21, 2006
Genres: YA Contemporary
Pages: 229
Buy on Amazon, Buy on Barnes & Noble, Buy on Books & Books
Goodreads
two-stars

Katherine V thought boys were gross
Katherine X just wanted to be friends
Katherine XVIII dumped him in an e-mail
K-19 broke his heart

When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type happens to be girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact.

On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun--but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl.

Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to surprising and heart-changing conclusions in this ingeniously layered comic novel about reinventing oneself.

An Abundance of KatherinesAn Abundance of Katherines by John Green
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

“What you remember becomes what happened. And the second moral of the story, if a story can have multiple morals, is that Dumpers are not inherently worse than Dumpees-breaking up isn’t something that gets done to you; it’s something that happens with you”.”

Catfairy’s First Thoughts
description

Two Fugging Stars!!

Now I just want to say that I am a huge fan of John Green’s books! I have always loved ya all my life but John Green is the person that sucked me into the world of ya loveliness again and made me become the biggest fangirl for ya literature! But as much as I have love and respect for one of the YA Gods this book killed me to the core and not in a good way at all…

An Abundance of Katherines is more like An Abundance of Crap! Now I can tell that John Green put so much effort into this book and you can see it in the writing! The amount of effort he put into this book was phenomenal but I feel he put in too much effort…more like an increasingly excessive amount of EFFORT! This book was simply overdone, to say the least! I felt that John Green was trying too hard to be John Green. The book itself was written in a typical ya cliche fashion. It followed the typical YA outline about the cute nerdy guy that is quirky and smart and that is always getting dumped by the girl that is too beautiful for him…blah blah blah…it was nauseating.

Catnopsis
Basically to put it simply the plot line of this book is about this guy Colin that is super duper nerdy and was once thought to be a child genius but fears he will never get to the genius status that he wants to be in his life. Colin is someone that wants to do great things in his life and be somebody but he fears he will never reach the potential of doing something great and genius like in his life.

Colin is the ultimate whiny and annoying nerd because all he does through most of the book is moan and groan about the 19th girl that dumped him whose name is remarkably Katherine. He feels like the world is ending and that he will never amount to anything in his life or never be loved by anyone. Colin also has an equally annoying friend named Hassan who endures all his whininess and Hassan decides to make him feel better by taking him on a road trip where they end up in a small town named Gutshot, Tennessee (A make-believe place by the way.). This is where the story actually begins but for me, it’s where I started to fall asleep.

Catfairy’s Final Thoughts

“Book are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they’ll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back.”

Remarkably this book received two stars because it started to pick up on page 155! Not the best being that the book had about 60 pages left…but the book held my attention towards the end. The writing of this book was typical John Green style but the plot itself was poorly written and the characters drove me crazy cakes! Colin was way too self-involved of a character and it is no surprise to me that he kept getting dumped one way or another. One of the very few good moments of the book was when Hassan told him off and basically called him a selfish asshole. Good job Hassan, I was rooting for you!

description

TWO CHARLIE CHUCHI STARS


FOLLOW ME @CHARLIECHUCHI

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two-stars

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Filed Under: Reviews by Author, Reviews by Genre, Reviews by Title, YA Reviews A-Z Tagged: john green, unpopular john green book

Moxie

November 5, 2017

MoxieMoxie by Jennifer Mathieu
Published by Roaring Brook Press on September 19, 2017
Genres: YA Contemporary
Pages: 330
Buy on Amazon, Buy on Barnes & Noble, Buy on Books & Books
Goodreads
five-stars

Vivian Carter is fed up. Fed up with her small-town Texas high school that thinks the football team can do no wrong. Fed up with sexist dress codes and hallway harassment. But most of all, Viv Carter is fed up with always following the rules.

Viv’s mom was a punk rock Riot Grrrl in the ’90s, so now Viv takes a page from her mother’s past and creates a feminist zine that she distributes anonymously to her classmates. She’s just blowing off steam, but other girls respond. Pretty soon Viv is forging friendships with other young women across the divides of cliques and popularity rankings, and she realizes that what she has started is nothing short of a girl revolution.

Catfairy’s Bookmix

Here is my killer Bikini Kill feminist inspired “angry riooot grrrl” music!

via GIPHY

Catfairy’s Riot Girrrl Thoughts

When I first heard about the book Moxie I had to reaaad it! I was literally jumping up and down after reading the synopsis. Luckily a friend of mine scored me a free copy of the book and the rest is history. This book was love at first sight for me. As soon as I started to read Moxie I totally wanted to be a part of the Moxie movement! I love reading books about girls coming together and standing strong to a society that belittles them all the time. Girls/Women are always being targeted as the lesser sex and fortunately, society is slowly making changes to the sexism that goes on with women. I have noticed that throughout the last couple of years that the word “feminist” is being used much more in our society and it isn’t deemed as a bad word anymore. Now there are documentaries such as Misrepresentation that speak out how the media sexualizes women, books such as She Persisted about girl activists/feminists, and the Women’s March in Washington after the election of Donald Trump. Finally, feminists are being seen and heard around the world and my hope is that the feminist movement never stops growing until we are finally treated as equals.

Catnopsis

via GIPHY

It all starts with the words, “Make me a sandwich.” These four little words bring out the monster riot girl inside Vivian and she creates the movement known as Moxie. The word Moxie was inspired by Vivian’s mother who used to be a part of the riot girl scene and this was the influence that she needed to create the Moxie Movement. Viviane was tired of the bulls*** that goes on in East Rockport High School and one day in her bedroom she creates a riot girl feminist zine named Moxie. Vivian releases all her frustration of the blatant sexism that goes on in her school each day in the Moxie zine. Every day the girls in her high school are being belittled by the East Rockport football team and the boys get away with it mainly because of the leader of the pack, Mitchell Wilson (Ultimate douche) is the principal’s son. Mitchell and his football goons come up with the most humiliating practices with the girls in the high school. The worst part about it is that the administration turns a blind eye to the antics that go on in Vivian Carter’s small-town Texas high school. The boys’ antics consist of yelling out, “Make me a sandwich,” when girls raise their hand to answer a question, to playing “bump and grab” sexual harassment games in the school hallway, and coming up with a humiliating list where they rank girls based on their “assets.” The Moxie girls come together to take down East Rockport High School and they slowly take the Moxie Movement by storm!

via GIPHY

Meet Vivian Carter (played by Hailee Steinfeld)

“What would East Rockport look like if Moxie were in charge?”

-Vivian Carter

Vivian is a bad ass riot girl and she had no clue the power that she had inside of her until she created the zine Moxie and sparked the Moxie Movement. I think Vivian is an inspiration to girls everywhere. It just takes one decision to change the world around you. 

Meet Lisa Carter (played by Mary-Louise Parker)

“It’s just contributing to the narrative that girls have to monitor their bodies and behaviors, and boys have the have the license and freedom to act like animals.”

-Lisa

Lisa is Vivian’s mom and she is the pivotal person to influence Vivian to listen to Bikini Kill and create the Moxie zine as well as spark a huge movement through East Rockport High School. Lisa used to be a riot girl as a young girl and she ran off to see all the riot girl bands back in the day. Vivian’s mom truly represented the riot girl message. Now Lisa has tamed down her riot girl ways and is working as a nurse while dating a nice Republican. Even though, Lisa doesn’t run around with the riot girl gang anymore she still has the riot girl spark inside of her and Vivian helps bring it out again. 

Meet Claudia (played by Mackenzie Foy)

“Like the word feminist is a really scary, weird word to people. It makes people think you hate men. I’d rather just say I’m for, you know, equality.”

-Claudia

Claudia is Vivian’s childhood best friend and she didn’t quite understand the Moxie movement in the beginning until something happened to her and the Moxie girl inside of her started to rage!

Meet Lucy Hernandez (played by Madison De La Garza)

via GIPHY

“The way she says feminist so casually, so easily, sort of blows my mind.”

-Vivian Carter

Lucy is the new girl in school and as soon as she steps into the halls of East Rockport High School she instantly gets the famous sexist words, “Make me a sandwich.” Lucy Hernandez is a true Moxie girl at heart and she encourages Vivian to push the boundaries of Moxie. Lucy Hernandez is a feminist and she isn’t ashamed of it. She brings the spark to the Moxie girl movement.

Meet Emma Johnson (played by Dove Cameron)

“Moxie is for every girl. Cheerleaders, too.”

-Vivian Carter

Emma Johnson is a straight-laced, ambitious, perfect cheerleader who isn’t as perfect as people think she is.

 

Meet Seth Acosta (played by Thomas Doherty)

“I decide that Seth Acosta deciding that I’m kick ass is even better than him thinking I’m pretty. Definitely better.”

-Vivian

Seth Acosta is a stone cold fox who wears things such as tight black jeans and Sonic Youth t-shirts. Vivian describes Seth with, “long dark hair hanging in front of his eyes like he is trying to hide behind it.” If that is not a stone cold fox I don’t know what is! He is a bundle of contradictions. A football player with a pension for Black Flag. Seth Acosta is the perfect book boyfriend because he is cultured, brooding, likes cool bands like Sonic Youth, and supports women’s rights. What is sexier than that?!

Meet Joan Jett (played by Charlie Chuchi) FOLLOW ME @charliechuchi

Joan Jett is a hissing rrriot cat!

Last and definitely not least… meet the most important character of the story! Joan Jett, the adorable tabby cat named after Lisa’s favorite singer Joan Jett! She is total Moxie cat material!

Pop Culture References

When I first heard about zines I heard about it through the book Zine Scene: The Do It Yourself Guide to Zines. After reading this book, I was totally inspired by the zine movement and I helped a friend of mine create a zine back in high school. I distinctly remember writing about the first day I met Hanson! (Such a teenybopper!) It was awesome and fun because we just talked about anything we wanted and we would charge about 50 cents a piece for it around our school!

Also when I first read Moxie I couldn’t help but relate it to my favorite 90’s movie Foxfire with the badass known as Angelina Jolie! These girls totally band together after experiencing sexual harassment from a high school teacher. The movie gives me all the feels for 90’s nostalgia and female empowerment! Highly recommended!

via GIPHY

Catfairy’s Final Thoughts

“As I watch Lucy spin and knock her dark curls around, and as I listen to Claudia laugh and sing along (badly), it occurs to me that this is what it means to be a feminist. Not a humanist or an equalist or whatever. But a feminist. It’s not a bad word. After today it might be my favorite word. Because really all it is is girls supporting each other and wanting to be treated like human beings in a world that’s always finding ways to tell them they’re not.”

-Vivian Carter

Even though I have always been interested in topics related to feminism since I was a young girl, I am the first one to admit that the word “feminist” intimidated me a little. Just like Claudia, I was scared of the power behind the word feminist and how culturally people would view feminist as just “angry women that hated men” which couldn’t be further from the truth.  Instead of using the word feminist I would tell people that I was for equal rights but now after reading Moxie, the word isn’t so scary anymore.

Nowadays instead of using the word feminist women are associating themselves as “intersectional feminists” which means feminism for all races. Back then, the riot girl scene didn’t include all races and it was mostly made up of white women and now that is changing.

Catfairy’s Rrrriot Girl Rant

Now I have to say that as a Latina and as an intersectional feminist, I am tired of being discriminated against. I am tired of the expectations that many people have of me. Many Latina women including me are stereotyped as women that are expected to cook, clean, have children, and take care of their husbands. Well, I don’t cook, my husband and I clean the house TOGETHER, and I am not sure if I even want children. Unfortunately, because of the fact that I am not your cookie cutter, Latina I have been discriminated against and judged for it. I have gone out in the world and earned my Bachelor’s and Masters in Education and I am judged more on the fact that I am unsure about kids and can’t cook to save my life more than my accomplishments. The discrimination and expectations that are put on women to cook, clean, take care of the children, look picture perfect, and hold a career at the same time has to STOP! We are human beings and we are all doing the best we can. As a society, we put so much pressure on women to do it ALL and it’s an unfair and UNREALISTIC expectation. We need to come together as women and do what makes us happy and forget about other people’s expectations. We need to be treated as equals and believe that we deserve to be as happy as everyone else. We are equals! We are Moxie! I am Moxie!

END RANT

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Filed Under: Reviews by Author, Reviews by Genre, Reviews by Title Tagged: feminist, girl power, intersectional feminist, moxie girl

The Razvak Hunter

October 5, 2017

I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Razvak HunterThe Razvak Hunter by Arel B. Grant
Published by BZN Writing House on February 28, 2016
Genres: fantasy
Pages: 236
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads
two-stars

Before…
Aelwyd has worked hard to become strong. As the Fairest One of Vallenthar, her power is formidable. Years of battle honed her into a fearsome warrior who never falters in front of an enemy.
However, there are shadows that when they come, they can swallow you whole.
After a hundred years of praying against it, the minute she walks into the chilling scene of death in front of her, she knows her personal nightmare is back.
He nearly destroyed her once, but she isn't a victim anymore. This time, she will stop him, or she will die trying.

Now...
Dalbran knows nothing of friends, joy, or mischief. The orphaned ward of a ruthless warrior woman, she’s never showed him love or affection. Instead she fills his days with learning the art of battle, savage teachings of how to survive in their harsh world. Days are filled with pain and exhaustion, but nighttime used to be his own. Even that is now lost, though, for something lurks in the shadows of sleep, clawing at him the moment his eyes close. He tells himself it’s okay, that he can handle it. However daunting the voices may be, however cold the hand that chokes him in the darkness, as long as it stays within the nightmare, everything will be all right.

As long as it stays within the nightmare…

Catfairy’s First Thoughts

 

This year I promised myself that I would go outside of my comfort zone and read a book that was not a contemporary YA read and I have to say that The Razvak Hunter was a book that was far out of my comfort zone.  Actually, this book was tooo far out of my comfort zone and even though the writing was on point I just wasn’t feeling the story. One of the biggest turnoffs that I had with this book was that there were some parts that were underdeveloped in the story and I just couldn’t connect to the book as a whole!

Catnopsis

The Razvak Hunter is about a girl named Aelwyd who is the face of the people of Vallenthar. Aelwyd represents the land of Vallenthar and she is the most powerful person in the whole land. Aelwyd’s power comes from the Rose of Vallenthar which is the jewel that is nestled on her forehead. The power that she has with the Rose of Vallenthar is that kind of power that is both a blessing and a curse. Aelwyd has the type of power where she can connect to every living being on earth. She is held to the highest standard of perfection and can never do any wrong in the eyes of the people of Vallenthar. (Talk about pressure for poor Aelwyd!)

“Because the Fairest one belongs to all, never to one. The Fairest One is to be a paragon of justice, of beauty and excellence. She is never to take sides, she is never to take favorites…She is never to fall in love. But what happens when the Fairest One can’t help it?”

Aelwyd falls in love with the character of Rodan. They are keeping their relationship under wraps because the Rose of Vallenthar isn’t supposed to be committed to anyone. (I am not sure why don’t ask me.) The secrecy doesn’t stop Rodan and he is absolutely devoted to Aelwyd and will stop at nothing to protect her and keep her away from the Razvak.

“The Razvak is back, raia.”

-Rodan

Things begin to take a drastic turn for Aelwyd when she finds out that the Razvak hunter is back to terrorize the land of Vallenthar. The Razvak hunter is this dark force that feeds off of people until they surrender their souls to the Razvak. Aelwyd is determined to stop the Razvak hunter and put an end to the bloodshed until she finds out that maybe the Razvak may just be biding his time until he is face to face with Aelwyd.

Dalbran is a character that is held captive by a warrior woman whose name is Harer. He is an orphan and has known nothing about the word or meaning of happiness. She is a savage woman that is teaching him how to battle and how to face the dark demons that may await him.

(Some trigger warnings in this book are animal cruelty and there is a scene of a dead child. This was hard to read for me and I want to let my book lovers be aware of this! Oh and for all of you unicorn lovers out, there is a mention of a unicorn that is killed! Abomination! I know! Although there is no description of this unicorn killing because I would not be able to handle it anymore with this book after everything that I just read!)

 

Meet Aelwyd (Played by Shay Mitchell)

Honestly, I just couldn’t connect to the character of Aelwyd at all! I found Aelwyd to be a cold character and I just couldn’t find many dimensions to her. Aelwyd had her worries and her insecurities about fulfilling her responsibilities as the Rose of Vallenthar and feared to lose her love Rodan. Although the stakes against this character weren’t enough for me to care for this character. I would have liked to see more depth to the character of Aelwyd.

 

Meet Rodan (Played by Austin Butler)

Rodan was such a blah character to me. I know he is the love of Aelwyd’s life or whatever but I didn’t see the appeal. I needed more of Rodan, more description, more pizzazz more something…unfortunately there wasn’t much to Rodan except the fact that he was devoted to Aelwyd. Rodan was depicted as a faceless character.

 

Pop Culture References

Personally, I am tired of seeing the whole trope of women fighting over a guy. Towards the middle end of the story, the new character Rowan came out of nowhere and Aelwyd immediately gave her the stink eye when she saw she was making eyes with her man Rodan!

via GIPHY

My main concerns of the introduction of Rowan was that she was introduced too late in the story and it just wasn’t well developed. They should have shown signs of Rowan much earlier in the story and I think it would have added more drama and tension to the story.

Catfairy’s Final Thoughts

After reading this story, I have to say that I am glad I decided to read something that wasn’t particularly on my TBR list. I thought that the language and the world building was exceptional but there was a lack of development with the characters in the story. The story mostly focused on the story of Aelwyd and her world/inner conflict. It just wasn’t enough for me.

Now I am not a fantasy reader, I am more of a magical realism reader so I may be very biased in my opinion! I would still give it a try if you’re a fantasy buff and let me know if you have a different opinion of it but I just wasn’t feeling it at all! This is the first book of the series and it looks like the writer is in the works of creating a second installment! Even though this was not a five star read for me I am looking forward to exposing myself to more fantasy reads starting with the ACOTAR series by Sarah J. Mass! Comment below and let me know what fantasy reads you have read that has been your favorite/least favorite!

 

View my bookcasting of The Razvak Hunter on my Pinterest account!

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Filed Under: Reviews by Author, Reviews by Genre, Reviews by Title, YA Reviews A-Z Tagged: fantasy, ya fantasy

The Fault in Our Stars

July 26, 2017

The Fault in Our StarsThe Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Published by Dutton Books on January 10, 2012
Genres: YA Contemporary, YA Romance
Pages: 313
Buy on Amazon, Buy on Barnes & Noble, Buy on Books & Books
Goodreads
five-stars

"I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once."

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.

Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green's most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.

 

Catfairy’s Booktape

Enjoy my angsty playlist inspired by The Fault in Our Stars!

...”There is always a hamartia.”

Catfairy’s Thoughts

This book has literally broken my heart and it was definitely a “privilege” in the words of the ever so eloquent/thought-provoking/unique/utterly charming Augustus Waters. (I just love that name. I will name my future child after Augustus.) It’s rare for me to find a book with such unique, witty and smart teenage characters who live their lives with such self-awareness that it’s a bit scary. If only there were more teenagers like Augustus Waters and Hazel Grace…it would definitely make the world a more interesting place.

… “I liked that he was a tenured professor in the Department of Slightly Crooked Smiles with a dual appointment in the Department of Having a Voice That Made My Skin Feel More Like Skin.”

…”Oh I wouldn’t mind Hazel Grace. It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you.” 

Catnopsis

This starry-eyed/teary-eyed book is about two teenagers who have lived with cancer for most of their lives. The narrator of the story Hazel Grace has terminal thyroid cancer that has completely destroyed her lungs and she has to lug an oxygen tank around to be able to breathe. She goes to school and has an obsession with re-reading Peter Van Houton’s book a million times and terrible reality shows. She goes to a cancer support group that she is dragged into even though she prefers to watch endless marathons of America’s Next Top Model and who can blame her? Fortunately, missing marathon episodes of models in stage cat fights weren’t so bad when she met the “metaphorical cigarette hanging” Augustus Waters in the support group. Augustus Waters leg was claimed by a malignant bone tumor. Before he had the tumor he used to play basketball but now resents his past. He also goes to school as well and has a penchant for “Call of Duty” style video games and The Price of Dawn sci-fi series. Augustus is basically your classic geek with hunka hunka good looks and body. 

…”What a slut time is. She screws everybody.”

Catfairy’s Pop Culture Time Warp

If you loved The Fault in Our Stars and you want to cry some more I highly recommend you give A Walk to Remember a go! For anyone that has seen A Walk to Remember didn’t it kill you a little bit inside when Mandy Moore said…”You have to promise you won’t fall in love with me…”

SHE IS EVIL!

Catfairy’s Final Thoughts

This story is not your stereotypical story about two cancer kids that fall in love. It’s about these two amazing characters that view the world in such a completely and devastatingly honest way than any of their peers. They embrace life for what it is…the good and the bad. They don’t sugarcoat their cancer at all. Hazel even calls herself the side-effect when it comes to her cancer at all. They live their lives with wild abandon and if that means having their first kiss in Amsterdam on a tour of the Anne Frank house then so be it! Although at the same time these characters are aware of what their fates are. It’s the kind of story that will make you appreciate the simplest things such as breathing without relying on Phalanxifor (which is fake by the way) and being nostalgic about running around a playground which sadly these characters didn’t have the luxury to do. These are one of the few books where I read the ending about 10 times till I was satisfied and realized that I still wasn’t. Isn’t that like life?

“Ok…bye.”
…”You gave me forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.”

Five Charlie Chuchi Stars!

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Have you read The Fault in Our Stars and what book just made you ugly cry after reading it?

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Filed Under: Reviews by Author, Reviews by Genre, Reviews by Title, YA Review, YA Reviews A-Z Tagged: cancer, contemporary ya, romance, ugly cry

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