Reading Survey

The best book I’ve ever read was The Fault in our Stars by John Green. This book was just so fabulous. John Green’s books have been a favourite of mine for the past couple years, so when I heard he had a new book coming out, I was incredibly excited. My sister and I pre-ordered the book (pre-orders were signed so obviously we were going to jump on that). The book came to Chapters faster than it did to our house, so we went there first. Since we had heard some of the pre-orders were not signed, we decided to buy one from Chapters, as there was many signed copies there (our pre-order ended up not being signed, so good for us). I think this is one of the first books that has actually brought me to tears. I read the book in less than 2 days, and that’s when you know a book is great. I just couldn’t put it down. When books are great, I find myself thinking about them when I am not reading, and I get excited to continue. The characters were likable and very mature for their age. Since both main characters either had or had had cancer, you knew something was going to go wrong (and it sure did). Not only did that make you want to continue reading, but Hazel and Augustus’s relationship was growing and it was exciting to see how well they went together. I really loved every page of that book.

My favourite author is (no surprise) John Green. I’m sure that is going to be the answer of many young (female) adult readers. I love John Green as a novelist and also as a person. He does a lot of good in his life and tries to make the world a less-sucky place to be. Lately I’ve heard many people complaining (on the internet, obviously) about how he writes and things he says on his Youtube channel. People are angry that he writes about a traditional quirky girl that is cute and different, and a guy falls in love with her without trying. This is ‘supported’ by people exclaiming that John Green supposes every girl should just be quirky and different and that’s how they’ll find love, when that’s clearly not the case. I think this idea is reading way into what an author does. Authors don’t write stories with the intention of changing you into their character, or suggesting at all that you should be this way in your life. No one writes about a serial killer or a drug addict in hopes that you may become one some day. I think it’s just ridiculous to be offended by this fictional story. A story doesn’t need to be realistic to be exciting. People have been saying that he’s “disgusting” and “gross” for writing such things, and it’s honestly hard to read. I feel like he works very hard to make the world a good place to be, and to see people call this guy disgusting for a story he wrote? It’s really unbelievable. He is still my favourite author, and someone that I’d absolutely love to meet one day.

The last book I read was called Stolen by Gabrielle Zevin. I’ve read another book by this author in grade 9 titled Elsewhere, and I remember enjoying it. This story was about a young girl named Gemma. On her way from England to Australia, she is drugged and kidnapped by a man named Ty who is in love with her. It’s about Ty slowly trying to convince Gemma to love him. I really enjoyed this book because there’s so many questions to ask, like how she is going to get out of there, and will she end up falling in love with him even though he took her away from everything she knew and loved? Towards the end, I found myself hoping they would end up together, which was weird because he sucked at the beginning. All together I thought it was a nice book.