The Fault In Our Stars - Megan Hazell

Title of Book: The Fault In Our Stars
Author: John Green
# of Pages: 313
Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Why This Book has Value:

The Fault In Our Stars is about a 16 year old girl named Hazel Grace Lancaster who is terminally ill with Thyroid cancer. She attends a cancer support group at a church, where she meets 17 year old Augustus Waters who also has dealt with cancer (osteosarcoma). They both are interested in the book 'An Imperial Affliction" and what happens to the characters after the book ends. Augustus uses his wish on taking himself and Hazel and her mom to Amsterdam when they find out they have a chance to meet the author. They face some hardships while in Amsterdam, one being the fact that Augustus' cancer has come back and spread through his body-and they begin to fall in love with each other. Throughout the book there is a lot of love and happiness, but also a lot of loss and suffering. It looks at the positive and negative aspects in life, and ultimately teaches us that one can't really exist without the other. This is shown in the quote, "Without pain, how could we know joy?" This book is also really easy for a lot of people to relate to in some aspect. One group of people it could help or inspire is others who are dealing with cancer. Cancer is extremely difficult to deal with, but this book offers a lot of helpful perspectives on dealing with it. It may also help anyone who has suffered from loss or heartbreak, or are trying to figure out who they are/what their place in this world is, etc. It offers strong insight while still being realistic, and I think anyone who reads this book will gain new perspectives. These are just a few among many reasons I think this book is valuable.

Title of Book:If I stay

Author:  Gayle Forman

# of Pages: 210

Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Why This Book has Value:

I think this book is valuable for teenagers as well as for other people because it teaches that how meeting someone so young doesn't always end bad and you can build a long term relationship with someone even though it can be difficult but it will all be worth it at the end, it teaches us that life is full of decisions sometimes difficult ones but we always end up making the right decisions. It also shows how important it is for parents and kids to trust and understand one each other, in the story it shows us how Adam shows Mia that people should love you for who you are and not for who they think you can change to, I think this is a very important message for teens so they can accept themselves for what they are. She is also an amazing big sister , she loves and cares about her little brother.

Summary of story:

If I stay is a novel that captures the life of  Mia Hall  17-year-old cellist with an amazing life. She has a loving rocker boyfriend named Adam , very cool and understanding parents, an adorable little brother, and a nearly assured acceptance to Julliard. When they were on their happiest moments on an unexpected snow day, something happened  and Mia's family is involved in a fatal car accident. Standing next to her  body, Mia realizes that she can see what's happening to her and her family  from an state of consciousness. She follows her body back to the hospital, where she discovers she was the only survivor out of all her family and in between the two days that she is deciding in between living or dying she has flashbacks to memorable times in her life , like learning the cello, having amazing reunions with her family and to falling in love with Adam, while all that is happening to Mia ,  Adam, Mia's grandparents, and her best friend, Kim , try to convince her to wake up, but it's a hard decision because  Mia must decide whether to fight and live with the love of her life and live without her family  or join her family in death.

Setting:  

The parts where it talks about her past is during her junior and senior years of high school, and  the present is divided by time that starts at 7:09 A.M. when they wake up in the snow day and ends at around 7:16 A.M. the next day when she wakes up. The place where everything takes place in the  past mostly focuses in  her high school and when it comes about her family it takes place in the house, while the present focuses more when all her family ar at the hospital Mia is staying, it's not the hospital in her hometown but a small local place that looks more like an old-age home than a medical center.

Theme:
The main theme in this book is the Power of Love and it occurs throughout the novel. In this novel, its amazing to see what love can motivate a person to do things that other people cannot ever imagine doing. Like Mia’s boyfriend, Adam, tries to visit his girlfriend, Mia, who is in comma, lying on the bed at ICU, but the nurses don't let Adam to enter the room where Mia is,because they think Adam is a stranger But then Adam tries to make a plan to see Mia.

       “We need to go upstairs to the ICU and then maybe someone could shout that Brooke Vega is here. That might do it. If it doesn’t, then sing. All we really want is to lure a couple of curious nurses out, and that grouchy head nurse after them. Once she comes out of the ICU and sees all of us in the hall, she’ll be too busy dealing with us to notice that Adam has slipped inside” (page 140 and paragraph 4). In this passage from the book, Adam makes a plan  to distract nurses and workers of hospital using  a famous punk singer, so that he can get into Mia’s  room and see her without interruptions. That's why Adam just for love calls the famous punk singer , and I think its crazy all the things he did during their relationship just because Mia was the love of his life , he even changed in many ways for her, but in a good way.

Characters:
In this story there is many characters , but the main one is Mia , all the other characters are people that are very close to her, many of the characters are very similar like Adam and Mia’s family are very alike because they all like rock music except from Mia which is very weird because she only likes the cello, her and her best friend are like the opposite but even though they are different they are like sisters.

The Fault in Our Stars (Jonathan Quintana)

Title of Book: The Fault in Our Stars
 Author: John Green
 # of Pages 313
 Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆
 Why This Book has Value:

The Fault in Our Stars is a love story between two cancer patients, Hazel Grace Lancaster, and Augustus Water. They meet at Support group that Hazel has to go to because of her depression. Augustus and Hazel are immediately drawn to each other. Hazel has a book that she reads over and over again called An Imperial Affliction. She has always wanted to meet the author of the book, Peter Van Houten, to get some unanswered questions about what happens when the book ends in mid-sentence. She tells Augustus about the book. He tells Hazel that he is going to read the book. He also gives Hazel a book in return. When Augustus finishes the book, he equally loves the book and has a desire to meet Peter Van Houten. Augustus had a Wish that he never used when he had cancer. He told Hazel that he was going to use the Wish to go to Amsterdam. And so it was to be. They were going to go to the place where they could get answers to all of their questions. They arrive in Amsterdam where a lot of things go down. I will not spoil it for the people who haven’t read it. When they return to America, things take a turn for the worse. I will also leave it up to you guys to see what happens.

This book is valuable for many reasons. For one, the way John Green portrays the characters is relatable to the real world. He makes it sound like Hazel and Augustus are real people and are living in the real world. It is also a book filled with all of the emotions. For a book to be valuable, it has to portray all the emotions. Joy, anger, sadness, etc. are all used in the Fault in Our Stars. It is a book on fighting a world-wide disease and the realization of death and suffering. We get to see a glimpse of what people with cancer have to go through. It is valuable because it shows encouragement, happiness, and joy even in the darkest of time of cancer. It helps people with cancer get through it better or encourages them to live life to the fullest and not to let their disease control their life. There are many things that can be done, even if they have stage IV cancer. Their life is not over until it’s over. It is a unique love story. That is another reason it is valuable. It is not like Cinderella or Snow White where the princesses are perfectly healthy and are saved by their perfect prince Charming. They were both sick and they had things wrong with them, but it was love. They both didn’t care what was wrong with each other. I think his book could be a classic now.

Frankenstein (Autumn Allacher)

Title of Book: Frankenstein
Author: Mary Shelley
# of Pages: 280
 Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
 Why This Book has Value:



This book has sentimental value because, it teaches readers the importance of boundaries and rules, that consequences will always follow actions, that every person had a monster and a child at heart, and most importantly; we all form our own paths. This book is valuable because, it teaches readers about the importance of our decisions in life, and how our decisions will impact us throughout time.

Frankenstein is a cross-narrated biography of a man named Victor, who is infatuated with science and the creation of life. After making a series of decisions, Victor creates a reincarnated monster from discarded parts, chemicals and electricity. His decision to cross the laws and boundaries of the fundamentals of life, later haunts him. His creation runs rampant and causes great chaos among Victor's life. Victor is left to face the consequences of his actions, and comes to realize that even the monster is a kind creature, only seeking for acceptance in a world of judgement any hypocrisy.

This book teaches morals and values that all people should come to face at least once, in their lives. Our decisions and actions do return to us, later in life, good or bad; and the actions we make today, will face us tomorrow. Not only does this book convey the importance of self-decisions, but it shows the truth that all people have good and bad inside of them; it is up to us as individuals to decide, what happens next.

Written by: Autumn Allacher

The Fault in Our Stars

Title of Book: The Fault in Our Stars Author: John Green # of Pages 289 Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆ Why This Book has Value: The Fault in Our Stars will be one of the best books that you could sit down and read simply because of the way John Green composed his characters, themes and the plot. In the book "The Fault in Our Stars" there is two main characters. One is Hazel Grace and the other is Augustus Waters. They meet one day in their cancer support group and from that day on Augustus impressed Hazel with his good looks and how smart he was. They first bonded over a book called "An Imperial Affliction" ironically it was about a cancer patient that is writing her life story, but the book end in the middle of a sentence. Thus begun the obsession of finding the end from the author. Augustus and Hazel go and meet this author who is a jerk. But in that trip Hazel realizes she is in love with Augustus even though he has been in love with her the whole book. During the trip Hazel also finds out that cancer has spread through out Augustus's body and he might not have much longer with her. They spend their time together beautifully. The way John Green built up the character of Augustus makes you twist and turn at every page. In the beginning he is coming back from his fight with cancer and luckily all he lost was his leg. John Green has you thinking Hazel is the ticking time bomb that will eventually die leaving Augustus with the rest of his life to live happily; until he doesn't. The building of Augustus also has to do with the big twist in the end that no one saw coming because this whole time John Green had you believing one thing when its the complete opposite. This book has value because not only is it a love story but it also has life lessons embedded within it. After reading this book I have a different look on life in the way that everything could always be worse but don't deny yourself of the simple beauties that life has to offer.

The Fault in our Stars- Jennifer Jensen

Title of Book: The Fault in our Stars
Author: John Green
# of Pages:
Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
Why This Book has Value:


The Fault in our Stars is a story about two teenaged lovers.  They met at a support group for cancer patients and become friends.  They bond over a book and a video game and their relationship flourishes. They begin just hanging out at each others houses and helping their friend, Isaac, who had lost his eyes to cancer.  Hazel, the main character gives Augustus the other main character a book to read and he gives her one as well.  He loves the book she gave him, An Imperial Affliction, and wants to meet the author. 
Hazel has already used her wish from the Genies, but Augustus had not.  He uses his wish to bring Hazel, her mother, and himself to Amsterdam where the author of the book resided and invited them.  They get there and to their surprise he was an alcoholic mess.  He made them leave and their idea of finding out all of the endings of the lives in the story they loved were ruined. 
They ended up going back to America with no answers but intense love for each other.  When they get back some things occur and if I told you the rest of the story, I would ruin the entire thing. I am going to leave you with that, and to find out what else happens in the book, you will have to read it yourself. 


This book has value for many reasons.  For one, the development of characters from the start to the finish were immense.  Second, the gripping and compelling plot pulls the reader in and doesn't let them go until they have finished the book.  Third, the theme is so powerful and extremely important for everyone, sick or not! Finally, the book has value because of the real world issues it puts into a book with only 313 pages. 
The development of characters from the start of the book to the finish was spectacular.  In the book, there is Hazel, a girl who has terminal cancer, afraid to get close to anyone because she thinks that she is a grenade.  She doesn't have many friends and doesn't open up to people.  Throughout the book, she gets closer and closer with Augustus and opens up to him and to the reader more.  She also grows as a person realizing that life has its ups and downs and that she needs to take them happily and move on and grow from the situation.  Augustus grows from a slick boy with sly words into a gentleman that has to face adversity.  Together they grow and without one another they wouldn't be where they were in the end of the book. 
For a book to have value, it has to first have a plot worth reading.  The plot of the Fault in our Stars was so extremely compelling that I could not put the book down.  I read it from cover to cover even though we were suppose to read it over four weeks.  The plot twists and turns and you never expect what is coming next which makes the story exciting and interesting.  It doesn't get boring because every page has something new.  They travel all over the world and experience things that you wish you could experience and are happy that you aren't experiencing. 
The theme of the book that I saw was to never take anything for granted.  You never know when your last good day will be so make every day worth living.  Also, you never know when your last day is so don't hold back from loving people, expressing yourself, and doing what makes you happy.  The book taught me to love myself and love everyone around me. 
Lastly, this book was about cancer.  Thousands if not millions of people deal with cancer every day or have someone close to them dealing with cancer.  It brought the reader into the life of a cancer patient from both terminal cancer to cancer that had already been treated.  It showed how they live and how they think and what really goes on with them.  It's very valuable because no one really knows what it is like unless you have it first hand and reading this book made it feel that way minus the pain and sickness. 
This book has so much value to it and every single person, boy, girl, young, old, black, white, everyone should read it because it will change you for the better. 


Jennifer Jensen

The Catcher in the Rye (Nicholas Kreutzer)

Title of Book:  the Catcher in the Rye
Author: J.D. Salinger
 # of Pages: 277
 Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
Why This Book has Value:

Holden Caulfield is in his final week at Pencey Prep, a boarding school that he has failed out of. It turns out Holden has been kicked out of several schools; he just doesn’t seem to do his work (that's not to say that he couldn’t do the work). The Catcher in the Rye, a novel by J.D. Salinger, is written in the first person with Holden explaining events in his recent past when he was 16 years old. Written in a very casual style, it is filled with Holden’s thoughts which digress from one point to the next through a meandering progression filled with common phrases such as “anyway,”  “then all of a sudden,” and frequent use of the word “goddam.” Holden smokes cigarette after cigarette as he thinks about the people he knows and casts negative judgement on many of them. He doesn’t like people that are phonies, but he admits he is a compulsive liar. He drinks every chance he gets. The book follows Holden through his last day at Pencey and a short stay in New York while he hides out from telling his parents that he once again was kicked out of school. 
Why is Holden so troubled? For one, his little brother Allie has died. This death occurred three years before in 1946, and Holden glorifies the person that Allie was; “he was the most intelligent member in the family. He was also the nicest, in lots of ways. He never got mad at anybody” (p.50). Dealing with death, especially the death of a brother or sister, has got to be really tough, and knowing that Holden was struggling this helped me to understand why he acted the way he did. This type of mourning is a universal human experience that many people can relate to, no matter what time period the book is written in. 
He also saw another death, that of a boy named James Castle at a prior boarding school. James jumped out a window wearing Holden’s turtleneck because he was being abusively bullied. This book was set in 1949, but bullying and suicide are real world issues that are just as common, maybe even more common, in our world today. Holden doesn’t like peer pressure and bullies, and it comes up more than once in the novel; “they had this goddam secret fraternity that I was too yellow not to join. There was this one pimply, boring guy, Robert Ackley, that wanted to get in. He kept trying to join, and they wouldn’t let him. Just because he was boring and pimply” (p. 217-218). Holden’s thoughts and reactions to the bullying could be those of a current 16 year old today, and reading Holden’s chain of thoughts surrounding those issues could help someone to deal with similar issues in their own life.
Holden knows he’s depressed, saying versions of “I guess it was because I was feeling so damn depressed and lonesome” throughout the book. Teenage depression and alienation is also a common problem in our world today. Holden shows signs of someone who is seriously depressed and may need help, and his depression is probably why he cannot succeed in school. He also abuses alcohol and cigarettes, and does some pretty risky things, all of which are signs of someone needing help. Those who are struggling with depression and alienation may find a connection to Holden that helps them deal with their own issues.  
The style The Catcher in the Rye was written in was offensive to many people because of the profanity and sexual references throughout the book. It has stayed on the list of most banned books for decades because of this abrasive style. There have been other books written about teenagers since then that have lots of profanity or much more intense sexual references, but this book was the first of its kind. After reading through the book, though, it isn’t classified as a classic book just because of OR in spite of its edgy style. It is a well written book with a complex character that we readers get to know in a very in-depth sort of way.

The Notebook - Jackie Walker

Title of Book: The Notebook
 Author: Nicholas Sparks
 # of Pages: 239
 Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
 Why This Book has Value:

Noah Calhoun and Allie Hamilton meet and fall in love in North Carolina. Allie's parents do not approve of their relationship, and Allie gets engaged to someone else when Noah goes to war. 14 years later they are reunited, and they are reminded of their love for each other.

This book is important for several different reasons. Good books are ones that people can relate to, whether it be related to the reader's personal experiences or to historical events, etc.  The setting of this book is around the Great Depression/ Industrial Revolution. This is an important time in the history of our country, and one that many people know a great deal about, especially those who have lived during this time.
The author of this book, Nicholas Sparks, is a well known writer who has many love stories. Having a well known author makes a book important because many people read all books from a favorite author of theirs. One of the things that make this book important is its connection to a universal "real world" experience. Everybody has loved someone before, and that may be what is so intriguing about romance novels. They all follow a similar plot line, but are unique in their own way, and they all show a new take or perspective on love, relationships, and what people mean to us.

The Great Gatsby Jack Apple

Title of Book:The Great Gatsby Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald # of Pages 154  Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆Why This Book has Value:

The book starts out with introducing us to Nick Carraway who is also the narrator.  Nick is from Minnesota (which F. Scott Fitzgerald is also from) and has moved to New York in 1922.  He moves to West Egg area of  Long Island which is very wealthy.  The people who live here have acquired their money fairly recently and are seen as the new rich. Nicks next door neighbor is a man called Jay Gatsby who lives in a huge mansion and throws lavish and crazy parties every Saturday night.  Nick is not like all his other neighbors as he has gone to Yale and is from old money.  He drives over to East Egg one night to have dinner with his cousin and her husband Tom.  His cousins name is Daisy Buchanan.  We are then introduced to the beautiful Jordan Baker and she begins a romance with Nick.   Tom is having an extramarital affair with a lady called Myrtle.  They are at a party and she teases Tom about his wife Daisy, and he breaks her nose.  As the summer moves along Nick gets an invatation  to attend one of Gatsby' s legendary parties and he learns that Gatsby was in love with his cousin Daisy 5 years previously in Louisville.  He is still madly in love with her!!  He has purchased the house across the bay from her  in the hopes of rekindling their romance even though she is married to Tom.   Gatsby persuades Nick to set up a meeting without her prior knowledge and they rekindle their old romance.  Shortly after Toms suspicions about his wife and Gatsby are proved right when he sees how Gatsby looks at Daisy across a room.  He confronts Gatsby with this and is very angry even though he is having an affair with Myrtle.  Next there is a car crash where Gatsby''s car runs over Myrtle and kills her.  Nick later finds out from Gatsby that Daisy was driving at the time.  I do not want to give away the ending but Myrtles husband is not happy.....The setting of this book is by the ocean on Long Island, I find this interesting as F. Scott Fitzgerald spent a lot of his time by the ocean and vacationed often in the French Riveria with his wife.  The time was the jazz age in the 1920's and there is a lot of illegal booze and lavish parties.  Gatsby has made his money from being an illegal bootlegger but does not seem to enjoy his wealth.  He neither drinks nor swims in his pool at his elegant estate.  I think this book has many values to a reader as we can all relate in wanting things that we cannot have and lying and being underhanded.  I found I did not really like many of the characters with their snobby and sometimes languid ways.  The green light at the end of Daisy's dock is seen as an 'enchanted object".  I think we can all see some of Daisy's characteristics in people around us like her lack of empathy and her inability to make choices.   There are a lot of themes running through this book: society and classes, education, lies, affairs and forgiveness all show up.  The color Yellow also shows up  a lot in this book.  Yellow is the color of Gold and Gold is a symbol of wealth.  The plot thickens at the end and a violent act occurs.  I enjoyed this novel and its characters and may reread it in the future!

Taya Hoy
Looking For Alaska
John Green
221 pages
☆☆☆☆☆                

Looking For Alaska takes place in Birmingham, Alabama at a private school named Culver Creek. The main character's name is Miles Halter who is extremely skinny and "nerdy" and is later dubbed Pudge as an ironic joke. Going to Culver Creek is a journey for Miles, and he does it to find his Great Perhaps; Miles's obsession of sorts is reading famous artists, writers, and geniuses last words, and he stumbles upon the idea of a Great Perhaps by reading Francois Rabelais last words: I go to seek a Great Perhaps. At Culver Creek he meets many wonderful friends including Colonel, a poor boy who comes from a trailer park. He has an innate hatred for rich people, is insanely smart, and acts like a tough guy; Alaska, the most beautiful girl he has ever seen in his life. She's brilliant, funny, dangerous, moody, selfish, and loves reading more than anything; Takumi, a quiet and loyal friend. Although he wasn't always physically there for his friends, he was emotionally there no matter what; he has a huge impact on the entire group of friends near the end of the book. Miles doesn't always feel as special as his friends, as shown in two quotes: "The Colonel ran ahead of me, gleeful at his ejection, and I jogged after him, trailing in his wake. I wanted to be one of those people who have streaks to maintain, who scorch the ground with their intensity. But for now, at least I knew such people, and they needed me, just like comets need tails.", and "But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane." And although they all get on each other's nerves sometimes, they entertain each other, love each other, and would sacrifice anything for each other.

This book is important because it goes in depth in topics like young love, grief, self-harm, philosophy, religion, connection, and death. This is a coming of age book and it shows the growth of Miles and the understanding that he gains through losing what he loves. This is an inspirational book that proves how strong human beings are, "Those awful things are survivable, because we are as indestructible as we believe ourselves to be. When adults say, "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail." John Green doesn't filter himself in this story which is probably my favorite part of reading this book. He talks about sex, feminism, alcohol, true love, and he writes about grief in a way that makes me think that he's been through the same experiences. It's truly an emotional story. " Her underwear, her jeans, the comforter, my corduroys, and my boxers between us, I thought. Five layers, and yet I felt it, the nervous warmth of touching—a pale reflection of the fireworks of one mouth on another, but a reflection nonetheless. And in the almost-ness of the moment, I cared at least enough. I wasn't sure whether I liked her, and I doubted whether I could trust her, but I cared at least enough to try to find out. Her on my bed, wide green eyes staring down at me. The enduring mystery of her sly, almost smirking, smile. Five layers between us."                                                                                              

"The Great Gatsby" Elyse Bonnett

The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
180 pages
☆☆☆☆

The Great Gatsby takes place in New York City around 1920. It talks about how the narrator participated in a migration after the great war which shows how long ago the narrator lived. The book is about this man how lives near a rich man, Gatsby, and how he followed his friends relationships. Together they go threw years of their life together analyzing the actions of others.

I think that this book is important because it represents the American dream. Gatsby’s dream is to be untied with his love Daisy even though she has a life on her own. Many people can relate to this because they can spend their whole lives searching for true love. Another reason this book is important is because it represents acceptance. Even though Nick was very different than Gatsby, he was still Gatsby’s friend. Nick was very poor and was hardly able to live where he was but Gatsby, who was very rich and lived a luxurious lifestyle, took him in as if there were no differences between them.

The Great Gatsby was a wonderful book which not only transported me to a different time and culture, but also made me realize things about myself.

The Great Gatsby (Kylie Roedel)

The Book "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a book set int he 1920's about a guy named Nick who moves into a house next to Gatsby. Gatsby is known all over New York and is an extremely wealthy man who has parties all the time. Nick is also cousins with Daisy and Daisy is married to Tom. Nick one day gets invited to Gatsby's party and meets Gatsby. They end up seeing each other a lot and become good friends and once Gatsby finds out that Daisy is his cousin he wants to see her because they used to be in love but it was way in the past. They end up seeing each other, Gatsby and Daisy and have like a secret love but they never know how it is going to work. Things from there start going out of control.

I think this book is worth reading because the book has a great plot. The plot goes very deep and you learn so much about your characters and you love the characters and I think thats always good while reading to love your characters so much. I also think this is worth reading because I personally learned a lot a grew as a person from reading this book and I think you would too. I found this book relatable to myself and my own life and you could too even though it is set in a different time the characters and plot could happen to anyone in modern time.

 I learned so much from this book and I think what makes a book important is learning a lot from the characters in the book. And from the book I learned what's in the past should stay in the past. Nick in the book says that you cannot repeat the past. Gatsby denies it but I take part on Nick's side. You can't repeat the past. What happened to Gatsby and Daisy in the past doesn't happen again it just gets worst and worst and they never end up together again. I also learned that cheating is never ever ok. First off, youre going to get caught eventually just like Daisy and Gatsby do. It just ends up hurting people and ruining love that you might have for someone. 

The Fault in our Stars John Green

Title of Book: Fault in Our Stars
Author: John Green
# of Pages 336
Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
Why This Book has Value: The choice of narration is amazing John Green wrote it as Hazel Grace telling you her story.  Hazel is a teenager with thyroid cancer who is trying to enjoy her time while she's alive even though she's moody like a normal teenager and on top of that is trying to beat cancer, she has a lot going on. Her mother makes her go to a support group to help terminally ill kids she dreads it at first but then happens to meet Gus a boy that her friend Isaac brought that is just now cancer free. Gus immediately shows his attraction towards Hazel and say to her one of my favorite quotes from the book "Because you're beautiful. I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence.”  I think that's very important in showing that you can be strong no matter the odds and just enjoy and live life. Moving on through out the book Hazel and Gus get very close spending most days together and falling in love. They fall so madly in love in such a small amount of time Gus even gives up his "wish" from the Make a Wish foundation and Gives it to Hazel so she can meet the author of her favorite book. When they get there they have the time of their lives, but when they meet Van Houten hes is not what they expected; hes a lazy no good slob who is just about the rudest person ever. They don't let him ruin their trip though. This book is fantastic because I feel like he perfectly portrays what it's like to be a cancer patient and you get to look at the world through a new pair of eyes.

The Fault In Our Stars (Rebecca Quinol)

Title of Book: The Fault In Our Stars
Author: John Green
# of Pages: 313
Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆

 Why This Book has Value:

The Fault In Our Stars is a gripping novel that captures what life is like while living with a terminal illness.  The story follows Hazel Grace Lancaster, a 16-year-old girl who has had an unfortunate encounter with thyroid cancer that has spread to her lungs.  Her rather monotonous life of reality TV, support group, and doctors appointments is suddenly turned upside down upon meeting Augustus Waters, a charismatic cancer survivor/ leg amputee.  Together they bond over Hazel's favorite novel, An Imperial Affliction written by the ever so elusive Peter Van Houten.  Hazel and Augustus manage to correspond with Van Houten's assistant in order to discover the unwritten fate's of AIA's characters, only to discover that the once great author is now a depressed alcoholic who is incapable of finishing the story seeing as he is no longer the same man who wrote the novel.  Their trip to discover the unwritten ending to An Imperial Affliction goes awry leading to the catastrophe of a lifetime.

Setting

During Hazel and Augustus' journey to meet Van Houten, they have the opportunity to visit the Anne Frank House.  This is a direct connection to the World War II era.  I feel that Hazel visiting the Frank House also connects the suffering of the two young girls.  But that's the thing about pain, "'Pain demands to be felt,'"(Green 57).  In both situations Anne and Hazel are facing their inevitable deaths. Even though Hazel isn't facing mass genocide, she is facing murder from within, "'There's nothing you can do about it'"(Green 10).  This is an important bridge between eras to show the difference between what society was fighting back then to what society is fighting now; the inexorable tragedy of terminal illness.

Universal Human Experiences

This novel does an excellent job at recognizing the universal need of love and the acceptance of others.  Augustus at one point tells Hazel, "'Oh, I wouldn't mind, Hazel Grace.  It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you'"(Green 176).  At one point or another, we all let others into our lives, thus exposing our weaknesses and bearing the most intimate parts of our soul for them to see.  We therefore give them permission to do what they please even if that means leaving entirely.  It's a complicated bond between needing love and gaining acceptance.  Hazel faces this first hand when confronted with an existential crisis upon returning from Amsterdam.  Much of the novel relates to accepting things as they are as they cannot be controlled and coming to terms with what  the consequences of love may entail.

Description

John Green certainly spared no extent when it came to the myriad of stupendous vocabulary and his impeccable writing style.  The texts feels almost as if it were ripped directly out of Hazel's thoughts.  Every emotion down to the screaming in outrage was captured to the point that the reader feels transported into another body, another life.  Hazel, being a college student, must have a endless amount of fierce vocabulary.  Not only does Green convey that she speaks in such ways but she also thinks as if she could be reading straight out of a dictionary.  Her feeling as a teenage girl are captured perfectly from the annoyance with her parents, to her overwhelming attraction to Augustus.  However the reality of being a cancer patient wasn't left out either.  "I was thinking a lot about how they’d made this place exist even though it should’ve been underwater, and how I was for Dr. Maria a kind of Amsterdam, a half drowned anomaly, and that made me think about dying"(Green 172).  The novel flawlessly portrays what life would be like in a terminally ill 16-year-old girl drying of cancer.

Themes

There are several overarching themes to this story but personally I feel that the fear of oblivion is the main theme that Green was trying to transmit.  Throughout the novel the subject of oblivion is repeatedly brought up.  We first come across the subject when Augustus is first introduced to the reader.  He voices his fear for it to which Hazel speaks,

“There will come a time,” I said, “when all of us are dead.  All of us.  There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything.  There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you.  Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this”- I gestured encompassingly- “will have been for naught.  Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it its millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever.  There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after.  And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it.  God knows that’s what everyone else does.”  (Green 12)

Although seemingly harsh, what Hazel says is very true.  Why fear the inevitable when it cannot be prevented?  Well that’s quite simple too.  Humans are scared of what they cannot control, for instance, the obliteration of our existence.  It’s one big paradox.  Oblivion is repeatedly brought up by Green even when Augustus declares his love for Hazel.  “‘I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you’” (Green 153).  The author is trying to convey that we  as humans must come to accept the unacceptable if we are to ever live in peace and happiness.

 
Title of Book: The Fault in Our Stars
Author: John Green
Page #: 313Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
 Why This Book has Value:
The exquisite novel starts out with Hazel. Hazel is a 17 year old girl with thyroid cancer and a satellite colony in her lungs, completely obsessed with the book “An Imperial Affliction”. Due to her being depressed (an effect of dying,) her mom makes her go to a support group “In the heart of Jesus Christ.” One way of explaining it through Hazel is, it sucks. But one day she meets Augustus, a charismatic, now cancer free, teen smart ellect obsessed with metaphors and utterly afraid of oblivion. He and Hazel immediately become friends along with Isaac who dragged Augustus into the Support Group in the first place. They introduce each other to amazing things, including Hazel showing him The Imperial Affliction. When he finishes it, they both agree they need answers. To get them, they travel all the way to Amsterdam where the author lives. On this amazing adventure, they experience loss, frustration, grief, what it feels like to have death shadowing your every step, but most of all, love. They both conquer their worst fears and learn that maybe it is all worth it.
Don’t even get me started on John Green (author of this amazing story.) He is my author crush (In other words, he is the author who has made me fall in love with every word he has ever written.) He has an amazing blog and vlog involving everything from his books to history, making him a great communicator even outside his novels (at least virtually, I’ve never met the man.) I think he has really developed since his first novel Looking for Alaska, but yet I love that book as much as I love TFIOS.
In this novel we see Hazel and Augustus deal with real-world issues, a lot of them. Obviously, since it’s the subject matter, we see cancer and how they both deal or dealt with it. We also see them deal with teen sexual frustration, the effects of dying, young love and real love, grief, death, pretty much all the good stuff. “And yet still I worried. I liked being a person. I wanted to keep at it. worry is yet another side effect of dying.” Hazel points out that depression and worry are both effects of dying throughout the story. When Augustus tells Hazel that he loves her he says, “I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.” This is probably the best love confession I have ever read, whether it’s an adult book or a child book, this is the one that truly made my heart clench. When they speak of death, Augustus says, “I believe in that line from An Imperial Affliction. ‘The risen sun, and the light is too bright and her eyes are losing but they aren’t lost. I don’t believe we return to haunt or comfort the living or anything, but I think something becomes of us.” I thought this showed what he thought would happen to him hypothetically.Even if their lives have come up short, I’ve got to say they have experienced life, no matter how short theirs turn out to be (I’m trying not to be cold, so if that sounded cold I completely apologize.)
Now to discussing characters and how they develop throughout the book. Of course we see as Hazel grows throughout the book. She feels as though she is a grenade who is going to blow up in everyone’s faces when she dies so she wants to minimize the casualties. She says to Augustus the reason she is a vegetarian is, “I want to minimize the number of deaths I am responsible for,” I said.” But she soon finds that that will never really be living and she has to do that for herself. She also realizes everyone will go on without her after she is gone, like her parents. Then there’s Augustus *swoons.* Gosh do I love that boy. He is (as you can see) my favorite character for so many reasons. First of all, he is so positive and upbeat and humorous at all times. I love his obsession with metaphors and the way he loves Hazel so deeply. I guess the first biggest draw to him other than attraction for Hazel was his cigarette metaphor. “They don’t kill you unless you light them cigarettes,” he said as Mom arrived at the curb. “And I’ve never lit one. It’s a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don’t give it the power to do its killing.” We find that he is, although he has all the most amazing qualities, selfish. He didn’t tell Hazel about how he was dying until she had “sealed the deal” with how much she loved him. Although, as I think about it, you could also see this as his way of getting her out of her shell. She already feels as though she’s a grenade, what is she gonna feel like after she finds out he is one too? She would have distanced her romantic feelings even more. There’s also his fear with oblivion. He says when we are first introduced to him, “I fear oblivion,” he said without a moment’s pause. “I fear it like the proverbial blind man who’s afraid of the dark.”  I think this is really what he overcame through the story. He was so scared of not being remembered by everyone vaguely like Cleopatra and George Washington that he didn’t think about how Hazel and his parents and Isaac would remember him so intimately. I can never figure out when he realizes this because we are at all times in Hazel’s head, but I believe we see it (at least in the movie) when Hazel reads him his eulogy.
This book definitely has a specific target audience. It really targets teenage girls, but I have found that guys my age, and adults of both genders, have all enjoyed the book. Really, my overall question to John Green would be “Since you are obviously not a teenage girl and never were one, how on Earth do you write so eloquently to their hearts?” I guess I’ll have to email the author myself....
Overall, I have found this book amazing. I, as a professional teen book critic (not that I’ve ever been hired, I just am in my head,) I would give this book a 4.5 out of 5. But, if I was just being non judgemental and just falling in love with the characters and the plot line, then it would definitely be a 1000000000000 out of 5.

Frankenstein | Madison Cimler

Title of Book: Frankenstein
 Author: Mary Shelley
# of Pages 324
Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Why This Book has Value:

Despite common misconceptions about Frankenstein, there is no scene where lightning flashes and a scientist screams “it’s alive!”, and the monster’s name wasn’t even named Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein, the scientist (not the monster), discovers a way to create life. He spends countless months working, neglecting even his own health, to create life. Once his project comes to fruition and Victor sees what he has created, he immediately runs away, leaving the “monster” on it’s own. With the monster left on his own to essentially “raise” himself, you could guess that things are going to go wrong! Experiencing great loneliness, the monster begins to seek revenge.

This book explores many important themes and question about beauty, life, existence, and science.

Does society equate beauty with goodness? Is it because of the monster's ugliness that he is ostracized from society? Does society turn “ugly people” evil by the way they are treated? Beauty is also capable of great destruction as discussed in this quote: “As I stood at the door, on a sudden I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak which stood about twenty yards from our house; and so soon as the dazzling light vanished, the oak had disappeared, and nothing remained but a blasted stump. When we visited it the next morning, we found the tree shattered in a singular manner. It was not splintered by the shock, but entirely reduced to thin ribbons of wood. I never beheld anything so utterly destroyed.”

The whole idea of life and the creation of life is an important topic. The book also explores the nature versus nurture debate. Are we all born good but become bad through our experiences or are some people simply born evil? Also, are creators responsible for their creations, and to what extent? What are the consequences of “playing god”? “I was dependent on none and related to none. The path of my departure was free, and there was none to lament my annihilation. My person was hideous and my stature gigantic. What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to solve them.”

Science is also a major issue of this book. What happens when we become too scientifically advanced? What are the dangers of the misuse of science? "I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge."

This is also a hot topic in today’s society. Think about GMO’s or how powerful of technological devices are.

If you are in search of a book to inspire you to question life, existence, science, and beauty then search no further. Despite being an older book the questions and moral dilemmas easily relate to today’s era.

The Great Gatsby (Allison Mieloch)

Title of Book:The Great Gatsby  Author:F.Scott Fitzgerald # of Pages180 Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆ Why This Book has Value:

In F.Scott Fitzgerald book The Great Gatsby gave insight on to how some people lived in the 1920’s in America. The book is from the point of view of a man named Nick Carraway who came from Chicago to New York and moved in next to Jay Gatsby. Its the story of how he got to know Gatsby and what he experienced in that time. The lavish and extravagant parties that Gatsby threw and what happened during them and the life he lived outside of them. As his friendship with Gatsby evolved he finds a connection that Gatsby has with Nick's cousin Daisy and the love they shared. He watches as Gatsby tries to recreate the past love he had with Daisy and realising that it's going to be harder to do then he imagined.

In the book The Great Gatsby a big part of the story line would be the setting. The setting of New York in the 1920’s and the great parties that were thrown and trouble that found people at that time. It shows how there were many different type of places in and around the city like differences in West Egg where Nick and Gatsby live and East Egg where daisy lived right across the river. They lived 20 miles away from New York off the coast on two land masses divided by a bay that looked identical and like a pair of enormous eggs. While on the outside they looked the same the people that lived there were very different.Nick described them as  “I lived at West Egg, the--well, the less fashionable of the two [...]. Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittere along the water.” In Between the city and the Eggs is a place called the valley of ashes Nick describes it as “a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens;where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.” The setting made the book memorable in the way that it was described you felt like you were really there and could see what the characters could see and imaging what was going on.

The language in The Great Gatsby was very descriptive.  Especially during party scenes like “The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun,and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music,and the opera of voices pitches a key higher.” The author uses these words to convey the extravagance of the event.He also describes emotion through words very well. In example the author writes “Whenever there was a pause in the song she filled it with gasping, broken sobs,and then took up the lyric again in a quavering soprano.” Using phrases like “gasping,broken sobs” the author gives a clear image to the reader in how she's feeling and makes it so descriptive that you don't only imagine what she looks like but you can almost hear her crying. When reading the author draws out his sentences and can communicate how overwhelmed nick is feeling by making the sentence a borderline run on sentence. In the second sentence he uses it to contrast to the other people because all around the girl the people are happy but she's sobbing and sad.

Throughout the story most of plot is made up of character development and the decisions the characters make. The book starts out with Nick being new in New York and all alone until he reconnects with Daisy and her husband and meets her friend. Events leading to Gatsby inviting him to a party. Through out the book Nick’s opinion of various people especially Gatsby changes a lot. In the end what he thought was “No--Gatsby turned out alright at the end;it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.” This shows that in the beginning Nick didn't know what to think of him and over time he grew to like him even if he wasn't as great as he portrayed himself he wasn't all that bad. In fact Gatsby was more of a victim than anyone else.