Yup. I don’t know whether I should be happy or scared. I’d rather they go with totally unknown actors and I don’t want Gus to be so obviously handsome. I don’t want them to Hollywood-ify this good thing. Just, no.
It’s rare for me to prefer a book I really like to be not turned into a film and The Fault In Our Stars is one of these rare moments. There’s just something sacredly perfect about it.
… and I need to have it, NOW. I don’t care if I’m swamped with requirements or I am suffering from lack of sleep, I need to read that book. Did you know? The first time I read John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, I was so convinced that AIA was a real book, I spent like ten minutes just to search everywhere (meaning the Internet) for a copy because it seemed so interesting. Needless to say, when I saw that it was just a fictional fictional book, I was heartbroken.
Basically my face when I found out AIA isn’t real.
But then I read this Q&A thread with the author himself and in response to one of the questions, he admitted that Peter De Vries’s The Blood of the Lamb was the closest thing to AIA (Peter De Vries? Peter Van Houten??) and I just stopped breathing right there and then and started searching for an online copy of the thing but I can’t find one! GAHHHH! And now I am frustrated and will forever be distracted for the rest of the day.
“[The Blood of the Lamb is] a brutal and brutally funny novel, and as close a thing to An Imperial Affliction as exists in the real world. ” – John Green
Augustus: You should see it. V for Vendetta I mean.
Hazel Grace: I’ll look it up.
Augustus: No. With Me. At my house. Now.
Oh, the things I’d do to that boy.
“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.”
From The Fault In Our Stars
In short, she was the ultimate tease and I just couldn’t grasp the reason why Miles (or Pudge, take your pick; it’s always nice to know your options) would be head over heels for this obviously emotionally imbalanced person.
I’ve recently finished reading John Green’s “Looking for Alaska”. One thing I’ve realized from reading countless of fiction is that most of the time, a good story involves good characterization. Thus, yes, the story was good. The female lead the book was named after for didn’t go well with me though. There was something wrong, or rather, not right with Alaska and it was so annoying how the other characters kept trying to “find” her. For me personally, she wasn’t worth the trouble.
Why, though? I’d ask myself and my reply would be to attack her insensitivity (or is it more of sheer lack of wit? But she reads so well …) and an eyebrow raised at her incessant so-called “not flirting” with all the lead male characters. In short, she was the ultimate tease and I just couldn’t grasp the reason why Miles (or Pudge, take your pick; it’s always nice to know your options) would be head over heels for this obviously emotionally imbalanced person. Yes, she was hot. Yes, she was fun to be with when she’s in a good mood but my God, she keeps on playing with his emotions! I don’t care if she never “meant” to but she did.
Of course, being the overthinking me, I saw this flash of annoyance as an avenue for psychoanalyzing myself (of course). Why was I annoyed at her … shortcoming? Because she was inconsistent and, as I said before, insensitive. You see, there’s a fine line between not giving a damn what people think of you and being downright insensitive. The latter involves another party, and in this particular story, it’s a high school kid who would do anything to make her look his way. It’s just so sad to watch and I hate her for being such a tease: telling him he’s cute but too bad because she’s so in love with her boyfriend. I mean, COME ON, what would a guy expect to think after he hears his crush say that? Well yes, us girls probably have had the same thought sometimes but we never actually say it out loud to the guy’s face. A little bit of tact here, please.
Come to think of it, she’s kind of like the female version of the resident bad boy with the broken family, hurtful past, and nobody-really-understands-me aura.
And then I started thinking, what if it was reversed? What if Alaska was a guy, would I still feel annoyed? Why, yes, definitely. But with a little bit of longing/hope (in that particular order). Come to think of it, she’s kind of like the female version of the resident bad boy with the broken family, hurtful past, and nobody-really-understands-me aura. Of course girls thrive on the idea that they’re the ones who could “heal” the hot and bothered bad boy. I guess it goes the same way with guys: getting the girl who wouldn’t give boys the time of day and making her smile. But then I’m pretty sure the annoyance will overcome the longing/hope if ever the book had a boy-Alaska instead seeing as this is what happens when I encounter “bad boys” in real life. I stay away from them. Once again, I ask myself, Why, Ara? Why?
Because I can’t deal with those kinds of people. Those too broken.
You might think it sounds mean. I know it is. I think the shortcoming, in the end, is on me because I’m not dumb enough, optimistic enough, or strong enough to handle the brokenness. I just can’t.
“You don’t remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened.”
from An Abundance of Katherines
Cheers to making something happen today and remembering it well. Not remembering it exactly, but just well.
P.S. I’ve been looking everywhere for an online illegal copy of the rest of his books but I can’t seem to find any 
But to be honest, I don’t mind actually buying his books. I know they’ll be worth my money and that’s saying something. I’ve never really thought this way about any other author except for Rowling.
“What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.”
from The Fault In Our Stars
One week after reading the book and my heart still clenches at those lines as if I’ve just put it down. John Green’s definitely one of my favorite writers and I’ve only read two of his books. This is quite unusual as I rarely give out that title regardless of what the world thinks. You could really sense the consistency in his writer-ness and I love it. Every bit of it.
“It’s hard to look right at you baby but here’s my number, so call my maybe!”
We’ve all encountered beauties in our lives, and not just the kind that’s on your high school crush’s face.
1. “She’s beautiful … from afar.”
It’s not meant to be an insult. There are certain kinds of “pretty” and “beautiful” that can only contain their charm from afar, like a forest on fire or torrent waves crashing. Theirs is the kind of beauty that is relative to one’s survival. It’s nice to look at but it became beautifully captivating because you know it can harm you, can put you in a sort of danger, if you get any closer. And now I amuse myself for moment as I realize I make it sound like a forest fire’s your typical bad boy. It’s a beautiful metaphor, though.
2. Beautiful! … Beautiful?
There are those beauties that blow you away at first sight, the kind that you just want to keep on filling your eyes with. You don’t dare look away, or if social norms can still hold you back by fearing you’ll be labeled as a weirdo, you keep on sneaking peeks and snippets of that beauty every chance you get. But most of the time, this kind of beauty fades away. Continue reading
“What matters to you defines your mattering.”
Just read John Green’s “An Abundance of Katherines” a couple of days ago. But I’m not here to talk about that. Hehe. I’m here to make my first attempt in anagramming, as is what the book’s protagonist, no-longer-prodigy-not-yet-a-genius Colin, does so well (among other things).
An anagram, in case you don’t know, is a type of word play where you take the letters of a word or phrase and rearrange them to form a new word or phrase. Cool? Yes! Easy? NO.
