Ninja Book Swap 2014

Who doesn't love getting proper mail, as opposed to bills, leaflets and junk, in the post? And if that mail is books, even better.

So I signed up to the lovely Ninja Book Swap, a scheme which pairs you up with another book obsessed person, and you send them a parcel, and get one in return from another book obsessed person. It's Secret Santa, but with books and book bloggers.

My parcel came with the instruction on the back that it was full of "ninjaness", which it absolutely was, thanks to Hanna @bookinginheels. Not only did she get me books, she also got me a couple of other treats...

I've been wanting to read Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel and Looking for Alaska by John Green for absolutely ages, so these are perfect. Both will be going on the pile of books I'm saving to read over the Christmas break. And my lovely notebook, letter writing set and the postcards are just beautiful.

Thanks again Hanna!

Fim review: The Fault in Our Stars

How to review The Fault in Our Stars without breaking down into a puddle of tears at the memory of the film - that's the tough question.

What's not a tough question is whether or not the film is good, because it is. Phew.

Adhering closely to John Green's novel of the same name, The Fault in Our Stars (let's just call it TFIOS from now on) follows cancer sufferer Hazel Lancaster (Shailene Woodley), who is forced to join a teenage cancer support group by her mother. There, she meets Augustus 'Gus' Waters (Ansel Elgort), who had one of his legs amputated after getting cancer, and finds herself reluctantly falling in love.

Woodley is excellent as the sarcastic, witty Hazel. I know people have said this before, but Woodley just has this face you want to watch, it's so full of expression and she uses all of it to get a point across. TFIOS is told through Hazel's point of view, and Woodley creates a Hazel true to the book, and who you want to hear from.

Wearing a tube connected to an oxygen tank that she carries around with her at all times, Woodley makes you manage to simultaneously forget that Hazel is always literally carrying the weight of her cancer with her, while also making you constantly aware that she's not a typical teenager. However, while Hazel is not a typical teenager, she is a normal one, and her cancer only heightens that - she rolls her eyes at her mum's behaviour, sulks at not getting her own way, and is overly dramatic when her mum tells her that she's depressed. In the midst of a story about two teenagers with cancer falling in love, Woodley's Hazel can make you belly laugh.

Elgort is a great Gus, with his charm and cheekiness. He's good looking, but not too good looking, and has a smile that could light up the sky. Elgort is at his best during one-to-one scenes with Woodley, when he's playing to a group his Gus occasionally veers into supreme cheesiness and cockiness. On the whole though, he's easily the 18-year-old boy every 17-year-old girl should fall in love with, because he's sweet and kind and intense but not too intense.

I loved watching Hazel and Gus's journey, metaphorical and literal, which took them, as in the novel, to Amsterdam to meet Hazel's favourite writer, the reclusive and mean Peter Van Houten (played as both comedic relief and villain by Willem Defoe). Seeing both Hazel and Gus change over the course of the film alternately made me feel hopeful, and desperately sad. There were parts that made tears well up in my eyes that I really didn't expect (the restaurant scene in Amsterdam, Hazel climbing all those stairs with steely eyed determination), and parts that made me laugh that I didn't expect (Van Houten being a complete arse, the guy who leads the support group). TFIOS is a rollercoaster of emotion, which is what makes it such a great film.

The other thing that makes it a great film is the relationships it explores. Of course, there's Hazel and Gus, but there are plenty of other relationships that stab at your heart and make you feel. Hazel's parents (played by Sam Trammell and Laura Dern) are funny and loving, and Dern is responsible for one of the most heartbreaking interactions of the film. Hazel and Gus's separate friendships with Issac (Nat Wolff - probably the best male actor in the film) are nuanced - each gets something different from Issac and gives something different to him - and as a trio they're fabulous. And Van Houten, the most antisocial character in the film, who acts as a counterpoint for all the emotion filled relationships we see, is also unexpectedly revealed as a man to whom relationships are important.

TFIOS is a gorgeous film, and the reason it's gorgeous is because it's full of heart and because you care about all the characters on screen. But, as a warning, you're not going to be okay after seeing this film. Okay?

Top 10 Tuesday (#16) - best books I read in 2013

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish, where the writers, like me, are particularly fond of lists. 

This week's topic is...top 10 books I read in 2013. This is a tough one, since I read a lot of great books, and this list will probably change right after I compile it!

Reviews:

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
The Siege, Three Days of Terror Inside the Taj by Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
Noble Conflict by Malorie Blackman
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Fortunately, the Milk... by Neil Gaiman
Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas
Scarlet by Marissa Meyer
Lean In - Women, Work and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

I'd love to do a honourable mentions list, but it would get ridiculously long, so I'll leave it with my top 10. What were your favourite reads of 2013?

Book review: Paper Towns by John Green

The first time I heard of John Green was when I watched an appearance he made, alongside Chris Colfer, at a breakfast at BookExpo America. From there, thinking he had a great sense of humour, I picked up The Fault in Our Stars, and fell in love while having my heart broken.

It's taken me a while to get round to reading his other work though, but after reading Paper Towns, I'm no less in love with Green's work (and no more healed).

Quentin Jacobsen has a night full of revenge and adventure with Margo Roth Spiegelman, the girl next door. The next day, she doesn't turn up to school.

As Quentin searches for her, he finds himself caught up in a mystery in which he learns as much about himself as he does the mysterious Margo.

Paper Towns is a moving and funny book about growing up and about the difference between what you want to see, and what's really there.

The brilliance of Paper Towns lies in the way that it's not like any other book about teenagers I've read before - part mystery, part high school drama, part romance, part Catcher in the Rye, part Gone Girl, part Gossip Girl, the mash-up shouldn't work, but it does.

Protagonist Quentin has a great voice, which I could hear in my head before I'd even finished the first page. He made me laugh, he made me sad, and at times he made me want to shake some sense in to him. Quentin is a lead character who grows and changes and comes to various realisations through the novel, and you can't help but love him every step of the way.

The supporting cast is brilliant, particularly Quentin's best friends Ben and Radar. Together, they're like the Three Musketeers, only not as cool (my kind of people). Green also creates a believable high school world, with characters like jock Jase and bully Chuck. They're stereotypes, but with Green's touch turn into three-dimensional stereotypes.

And then there's Margo. Largely absent for much of the novel, Margo is more of an idea than anything else, which goes back to the title of the book (I'll leave you to find out more about that). Margo is not at the centre of Paper Towns, the lack of Margo is. It's an interesting concept, one visited in a different way by the aforementioned Gone Girl.

Paper Towns is the kind of novel that makes you reflect (and want to read Walt Whitman), and the kind of novel that will stay with me for a long time. At least until I read my next Green novel, which will no doubt damage me a bit more damaged and make me fall in love a bit more.

How I got this book: Borrowed from the library

Top Ten Tuesday (#11) - books I wish could have had sequels

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish, where the writers, like me, are particularly fond of lists.   

This week's topic is...top 10 books I wish could have had sequels (they were complete stories but you just could have read more and more about these characters or set in that world).

This is a tough one, because lately I've been speaking out about how every book nowadays seems to be part of a trilogy or series. I think a lot of great books stand on their own, and don't need sequels. Therefore, none of the below are books I really, really want to read a full sequel to, but ones where I sometimes wish I'd been able to get a definitive answer on what happened next.

1. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
We'll start with I Capture the Castle. When I first read it (as a young teenager) I was saddened to find there was no sequel. I felt like I'd been shown a slice of Cassandra Mortmain's life, and I really wanted to know exactly what happened next. Now, I see why Smith worked that way, but I still want to know more.

2. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
This is one of my favourite books, and ends on such a perfect melancholy note. Still, I'd love to ask Shriver what she thought happened next, and how Kevin and his mum dealt with each other.

3. Matilda by Roald Dahl
I'd love to find out what a grown-up Matilda was like. I imagine she set up a school for clever girls, and spent her life making sure all women got an education.

4. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Okay, I don't want a full sequel but five minutes with John Green to find out his headcanon for Hazel would be great.

5. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Lord of the Rings series has a huge number of appendices which expand on the history of Middle Earth and events outside the books. I'd like something similar (on a much, much, much smaller scale) for The Hunger Games, where Collins tells us more about the world and how it copes after the Games finish. We get a small glimpse, but since it's through Katniss's point of view and she's out of it, we don't get much.

6. After Tomorrow by Gillian Cross
I read this recently (review here), and I'm quite happy that there's not a sequel, because I think the characters I met are just fine. I would like to know from Cross, though, how (if) the world recovers and what's ahead for Britain in her universe.

7. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
A beautiful, haunting novel, Never Let Me Go (review here) is pretty much perfect. Sometimes a small part of me wants to know exactly what happened to Kathy though, rather than me being the one to figure it out. I think it would be easier to come to terms with if Ishiguro spelt it out.

8. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
I'm a huge fan of Gaiman, and could read more of his worlds anytime. It was a toss up between Neverwhere and Stardust as to what went on this list, and I went for Neverwhere.

9. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
There is actually a sequel to this, called Scarlett, and written by someone who's not Mitchell. I don't need a full book, I just need to know whether Rhett ever forgives Scarlet and the two get together.

10. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Another book I recently read (review here), Gone Girl's ending is jawdropping. I won't spoil anything, but I'd love to know how the lives of the characters panned out. If you've read it, you'll know what I'm talking about.

What books would you like to see sequels to?

Book review: Anthem for Jackson Dawes by Celia Bryce

"Two teenagers fight the biggest battle of all" says the tagline for Anthem for Jackson Dawes.

And it's not untrue. Fourteen-year-old Megan Bright is admitted to hospital for chemotherapy, where she meets the enigmatic, rebellious, funny Jackson Dawes, a fellow cancer patient. The two quickly fall for each other.

Does this story sound slightly familiar? If John Green's The Fault in Our Stars came to mind when you read the above description, then you're not the only one. The paralells between the two novels are obvious, even though the settings might be different.

Much of Megan's story is told while she's in hospital, where just five days stretch out for almost half the book. Time stretches and contracts strangely in Anthem for Jackson Dawes, perhaps a reflection of the way time can slow down or rush past when your whole life changes.

We meet Jackson pretty quickly, and he is enigmatic and rebellious and funny. Unfortunately, the reader doesn't get to spend too much time with him, and I'm unsure what, besides their shared age, makes Megan fall for him so hard, so fast.

Megan herself is an interesting character. I found her whiny, immature, old beyond her years and sensible all at the same time, among a host of other things. Then I remembered that she is 13 for most of this novel, and that time in a young girl's life can be confusing, manifesting itself through ups and downs in personality. Add in that Megan has cancer, and it's not surprising that Megan is all over the place. 

Anthem for Jackson Dawes is an alright book, but having recently read The Fault in Our Stars, I really couldn't see it as anything but a poor relation to Green's novel. Megan and Jackson are poor imitations of Hazel and Gus, and the magic in The Fault in Our Stars is missing from Bryce's novel. In another world, Anthem for Jackson Dawes might have been a wonderful novel (and it is truly heartbreaking), but it's just unlucky that The Fault in Our Stars is around to shine much brighter.

Book review: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Have you ever read a book that with its last word just stunned you into tears? I have, and it's called The Fault in Our Stars.

John Green's book follows 17-year-old Hazel, a teenager with terminal cancer, as she meets and falls in love with Gus, who has lost a leg to cancer. Their story is surprising, touching and full of love. And above all, it's full of humour, surprising considering its subject matter.

Intelligent and clever, Hazel's life is changed when Gus walks into it at a support group for kids with cancer. The pair bond instantly, and are brought even closer by the suffering of their friend Issac, who has his second eye removed due to cancer after losing the first a while ago, and a trip to meet the reclusive Peter Van Houten, who wrote Hazel's favourite book An Imperial Affliction - a book about a girl, who has cancer, which ends mid-sentence.

Hazel and Gus may not have the most conventional of teenage romances, but theirs is one of the most powerful love stories I've ever read. Despite their young age, the two are both more grown-up than many grown-ups, and more immature than many children. They are living all stages of their lives in this one teenage stage, because the future is not guaranteed.

Green writes convincingly about both love and cancer, and his descriptions are second to none. In a confessional moment between the couple, Green's description of Gus's pain hit me like a punch to the chest:

"...and then he broke down, just for one moment, his sob roaring impotent like a clap of thunder unaccompanied by lightning, the terrible ferocity that amateurs in the field of suffering might mistake for weakness."

Later, when Hazel is describing the pain she feels in hospital, Green's description is vivid and makes it easy to imagine how Hazel is feeling, even if we can't feel it ourselves:

"I called it a nine because I was saving my ten. And here it was, the great and terrible ten, slamming me again and again as I lay still and alone in my bed staring at the ceiling, the waves tossing me against the rocks then pulling me back out to sea so they could launch me again into the jagged face of the cliff, leaving me floating faceup on the water, undrowned."

It's easy to think The Fault in Our Stars is a miserable book. It's not, it's full of beauty and love, and even plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, and it's full of deep thoughts that are put across in simple, non-pretentious ways, like Hazel's description as she has a picnic with her parents:

"You could hear the wind in the leaves, and on that wind travelled the screams of the kids on the playground in the distance, the little kids figuring out how to be alive, how to navigate a world that was not built for them by navigating a playground that was."

Yes, The Fault in Our Stars is very, very sad, but it's also very, very hopeful about life in general and how much meaning our lives can have regardless of how short they are. My reaction on reading the final words of The Fault in Our Stars was to let the tears flow, but they were good tears, full of happiness for Hazel.