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• Title: Paper Towns
• Author: John Green
• Publisher: Dutton
• Year of Publication: 2008
• Pages: 305

In early 2007, I stumbled upon John and Hank Green’s now-complete Brotherhood 2.0 video blog (or vlog). (They now have a new vlog/blog at Nerdfighters.com.) To be honest, I had never heard of either of them before their project, but their vlog posts were painfully funny and a welcome diversion from my piles and piles of graduate school work.

Here are two vlog posts of John Green reading a draft of Paper Towns way back in 2007: Paper Towns, Part 1 and Paper Towns, Part 2. (And don’t worry, they’re not spoilers.)

In December 2007, Brotherhood 2.0 ended. Eventually, I stopped thinking about the Green brothers and Paper Towns until Melissa Walker posted on her blog in October about Paper Towns and this fantastic video of people with their new copies! (Thanks for the reminder, Melissa!)

Paper Towns was definitely something to be excited about. It’s a fantastic realistic story wherein the protagonist learns more about himself than the person he is searching for. I would put it in the Catcher in the Rye—Perks of Being a Wallflower—Be Good—Tell Your Sister category of bildungsromans that are and would be appealing to young adults, 20-somethings, and YA literature fans like myself.

John Green balanced the right amount of emotionality without becoming sappy, existentialism without becoming too abstract, and humor without becoming insincere. I was thoroughly impressed, and I look forward to reading more of John Green’s work. 4.5/5

Have you read this book yet? What do you think of it?

• Title: Tell Your Sister
• Author: Andrew Daley (blogTO Q&A)
• Publisher: Tightrope Books
• Year of Publication: 2007
• Pages: 233

Tell Your Sister would make a great Canadian indie film. Its story is distressful and personal, at times reminding me of the feelings conjured up by the 2007 film 4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile (4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days), even though they are about very different things.

The story is complex, rotating every other chapter between past and present. The two protagonists, Aaron and Dean, are portrayed in very different ways. The narrator mostly sticks with Aaron during the past, and the present is Dean’s.

It’s clear that the author’s day job is in visual media. He is very good at making the setting part of the story, often including descriptions of the smells that accompany it.

The pace is fast, and the story is interesting. I would recommend this book as young adult fiction, but it works for adults, too. (4/5)

Thanks to MiniBookExpo for Bloggers and Tightrope Books for sending me this free copy of Tell Your Sister.

• Title: Be Good
• Author: Stacey May Fowles
• Publisher: Tightrope Books
• Year of Publication: 2007
• Pages: 183

Be Good is a tale told in turn by several characters: Morgan, Hannah, Estella, Finn, Jacob, and Mr. Templeton. A web of lies is spun and the reader has a hard time deciphering the truth. At the end, it is plain to see that the truth doesn’t really matter anymore.

This book is the size of The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky and similar in the way it seems to speak to young adults with a depressing tone throughout and self-effacing denouement. There was no happy ending in either story. Both also reminded me of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. As someone who didn’t enjoy The Catcher in the Rye (when I read it in high school nor when I read it in college just to solidify my opinion), I somehow found myself enjoying Perks when I read it, and I enjoyed Be Good, as well. I think I would have loved both had I read them in high school instead of Catcher.

That kind of story has lost its luster for me now, as someone in her mid-twenties, and I think people my age would come to the same conclusion. This book would be ideal for mature high school students and young college-aged students. I think they would have an easier time relating to this book than I had.

The writing style is not challenging, but it is good at hooking the reader in. The unpretentiousness of the conversational tone the author takes in every chapter is comforting and makes for a very easy, relaxing summer read. (3/5)

Thanks to MiniBookExpo for Bloggers and Tightrope Books for sending me this free signed copy of Be Good!