Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Will Grayson Will Grayson

John Green and David Levithan

310 Pages

"i never hoped for everything to get better- only for one thing to get better. and it never did. so eventually i gave up. i give up every single day."

Will Grayson lives by the rules: shut up and don't care too much. His best friend is the gay giant, Tiny. Other Will Grayson is a depressed boy, living with his mom in an old house and secretly online dating a boy he's never met, Isaac. I guess you could call it fate that brought the two of them together. Other Will Grayson was supposed to be meeting Isaac, but it turned out that Isaac was just a cruel trick by his no-longer-friend Maura, and Will Grayson was hanging out while his friends enjoyed an over 21 concert. Will introduces Will to Tiny, and Will finally has the courage to come out to his friends and mom. Tiny discovers that love should be more than himself, through writing, directing, and starring in his own play. And Will discovers that, despite shitting up and not caring, he still has emotions, he's still falling apart a little.

Oh. My. Gosh. Two of my most favorite authors ever, collabbed on one single novel... I just.. The feels! (Totally kidding, though, I don't talk like that.) This was just one amazing novel. The contrasting views of the characters, but the parallels portrayed in their views, gave it so much meaning. I want to just list a bunch more quotes now, but I won't... I really really really want John Green and David Levithan to collab again, because they were able to write so well together, and I would read it in a heartbeat.

Pages this Semester: 6322

"Do not lose hope- what you seek will be found. Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turn. Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story."
-Neil Gaiman

Paper Towns

Paper Towns

John Green

305 Pages

"... at some point, you gotta stop looking up at the sky, or one of these days you'll look back down and see that you floated away, too."

Quentin thinks he had been given a miracle, living next to Margo Roth Spiegelman. After they discover a body together, Q feels a bond between him and Margo, but soon after, a window closes between them. It stays shut until the last month of their senior year, when Margo enlists Quentin's help in a possibly law-breaking scheme. After the night is over, Quentin feels like everything will be different between them, but when he gets to school the next day, Margo has mysteriously disappeared. He goes on a journey to find where Margo has gone off too, and discovers that he doesn't know who the girl is behind the window.

Despite the fact that this was way different from John Green's two best novels (in my opinion), The Fault in our Stars and Looking for Alaska, I thought this was a really great novel. There was so much depth to it, and I think the mirror-versus-window theory is applicable to anyone's life, even my own. I also liked the many quotes John Green included from other authors, like Emily Dickinson's "Forever is made up of nows."  The end was great, because it was happy, but also it wasn't, because that's life, you know?

Pages this Semester: 5923

"But how could you live and have no story to tell?"
-Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Doctor Who: Prisoner of the Daleks

Doctor Who: Prisoner of the Daleks

Trevor Baxendale

249 Pages

"It's not how you feel that matters. It's what you do despite how you feel."

The Doctor shows up on this planet, gets curious (dang that curiosity) and begins to look around, very quickly becoming locked in a cell. He fears he will be trapped there forever, but a team of Dalek hunters show up after just over three days and free him. After an attack by the Daleks, resulting in the death of one of the party of hunters, the Doctor slowly pieces together what he can gather of the Daleks plan to take over the universe. He, along with the band of misfit hunters, put aside their differences, working together to save the world from the evil that is the Dalek.

Overall, I really did like the story line. It was really fast paced, a lot of action, with just a hint of romance that you can't see until it just sneaks up on you. I was quite disappointed, however, with the lack of humor from the Doctor. That really is his charm, you know, and without it the novel was just missing something. There were a few moments where I was like 'yeah, there's my Doctor', but not nearly enough. The story did do a better job of communicating the terror of the Daleks, though, than the show ever has.

Pages this Semester: 5566

"Awful story, of course, but those are the ones that last the longest."
-Stephen King

An Abundance of Katherines

An Abundance of Katherines

John Green

228 Pages

"You can't live with the idea that someone might leave... You're not being a good friend or a good boyfriend or whatever, because you're only thinking they-might-not-like-me-they-might-not-like-me, and guess what? When you act like that, no one likes you."

Colin is a child-prodigy turning teenage-nothing, and that thought scares him. He has just been broken up with by the nineteenth Katherine he's dated, and that, combined with his nothing-ness, is too much for him to handle, so he and his best friend Hassan head out on a road trip, trying to figure out... Life. They end up stopping in a dead town, where Colin works to become more than a prodigy, works to find out there are more than Katherines.

This wasn't my favorite John Green novel, but I did still like it a lot. I like the confusion that Colin has about growing up, about being extremely intelligent as a child, but not knowing where that will take him in the future, if anywhere, because sometimes I feel a lot like that. (I'm not saying I'm a child prodigy or anything, because I'm definitely not) Just, the uncertainty of the future, and the need to be something really spectacular is so relateable. And I just think of the very last line, because it's how I want to feel too...

Pages this Semester: 5031

"Authors never include the whole story; they just get to the point. Colin thought the truth should matter as much as the point, and he figured that was why he couldn't tell good stories."
-John Green

Allegiant

Allegiant

Veronica Roth

343 Pages

" 'Yeah, sometimes life really sucks,' she says. 'But you know what I'm holding on for?... The moments that don't suck... The trick is to notice them when they come around."

The compound has just found out their government has been lying to them, and the war between the factions and the fact I on less is still raging. The Allegiant have formed, making a plan to venture to the outside world and save them from the doom they face. When the group finally makes its way past the boundary between the compound and the real world, they find that their whole lives, their whole existence, have been a carefully crafted lie. They are now facing a whole new reality, and with it comes even greater problems.

This was quite an end to the trilogy. At first, it was pretty slow, but it picked up at the end, and all of the most exciting things ended up happening at pretty much the same time. I didn't like the way that this novel was different than the other two in the fact that it was told from both Tris and Four's point of view. I understand why she did that, though. The end absolutely devastated me. It was nothing like I was expecting, and nothing like I was wanting. I really don't want to spoil anything, but I was having to wipe tears from my eyes.

Pages this Semester: 4565

"This story is about love, which means it is also about hate."

-Philip Jose Farmer

Insurgent

Insurgent

Veronica Roth

324 Pages

"I feel bare. I didn't realize that I wore my secrets as armor until they were gone, and now everyone sees me as I really am."

War has broken out between the factions. It is Erudite against Abnegation, Dauntless split in half, and Amity and Candor attempting to remain neutral. Although the citizens are not aware of it, this war is much bigger than just factions. It is a war that will expose them to a whole new world.

This was a great continuation to Divergent. It really cleared up the questions I had at the end, but also added a lot to the story line. This is really a brilliant set of books. 

Pages this Semester: 4222

"Enemies are people who's story you haven't heard or who's faces you haven't seen."

-Irene Butler

Ender's Game

Ender's Game

Orson Scott Card
226 Pages

"In that moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves."

A race of beings called "buggers" has attacked Earth, leaving its inhabitants in chaos. In order to prepare themselves for a third attack, the leaders of earth have begun training its most brilliant young minds to fight. At only six, Ended is chosen to go to Battle School. There, he uses his own logic and brains to surpass the abilities of all the other children. He is the last hope Earth has against the buggers. But, he has to escape his own mind in order to defeat them.

I actually watched this movie before I decided to read the book. The movie was absolutely amazing, and I think the book is also. There were so many layers to peel back in order to fully understand the feelings of Ender, the main character. There was also a large part of the book devoted to what is going on while Ender is away from home, which was important to the understanding of the entire novel. There were a few errors in the writing, but those can be forgiven because the story itself was so captivating.

Pages this Semester: 3898

"A story only matters, I suspect, to the extent that the people in the story change."

-Neil Gaiman