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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: The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, Book III)
• Author: Philip Pullman
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Year of Publication: 2000
• Pages: 518

It has all come to this: The Amber Spyglass continues and completes the story of Lyra and Will with the greatest climax in all of the trilogy and the final denouement. And no, I didn’t get my happy ending, per se, but I did get a promise.

There are more ambiguities, more philosophical ideas, more complex relationships in The Amber Spyglass than the parts before it.

I was engrossed from start to finish; I could not put it down. When I finished, I had a hard time putting my thoughts to words. From the world of mulefas (ultimately quadruped intelligent people with seed pods for wheels), to the world of the dead, to the world of our own, to Lyra’s — from meeting, despising, and befriending the Gallivespian spies (fairy-sized people with poisonous spurs on their heals), to meeting Lyra’s own death, to falling in love — there was so much to say. All of it was worthwhile, all of it added to the complexity and depth of the characters, all of it made me want more.

This trilogy would be a set of jewels in any collection, especially one for young adults. The progression of the story not only takes place in what happens, but in the ideas expressed and the maturity of the prose. I can’t wait to read all 1200+ pages again. 5/5

• Title: The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, Book II)
• Author: Philip Pullman
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Year of Publication: 1997
• Pages: 326

The Subtle Knife is definitely a sequel, and reading it immediately after reading The Golden Compass is satisfying in a way that reading it alone would not have been. However, as a stand-alone work it was very good. It maintained the same tone of voice as The Golden Compass without being tiresome or too similar to it. (And I’m still glad to know that there is more to come in Book III.)

Lyra is still our protagonist, and in this part of His Dark Materials, she befriends a boy named Will who is from a different world than Lyra’s, one much like our own. Their relationship grows and strengthens over the course of this part of the story. Lyra and Will, both clever and good-natured prepubescent children, form a friendship with each other when they are both in trying times of loneliness and desperation. But it is not just a friendship of convenience; they sincerely admire and care about each other. In a quiet conversation near the edge of sleep, Pantalaimon, Lyra’s dæmon, encourages Will:

“[Lyra] thinks you’re the bravest fighter she ever saw, as brave as Iorek Byrnison.”
“I suppose I better try not to seem frightened, then,” Will said. He was quiet for a minute or so, and then he said, “I think Lyra’s braver than me. I think she’s the best friend I ever had.”
“She thinks that about you as well,” whispered the dæmon.
Presently Will closed his eyes.
Lyra lay unmoving, but her eyes were wide open in the dark, and her heart was beating hard. (p. 267)

Book II maintained the excitement of Book I, but in a more sobering way. I felt much more panic reading this book than I did the other, and much less bliss. It is still an exciting story and still one I want to continue (forever), but it’s sad. Here’s to hoping for a happy ending! 5/5

• Title: The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, Book I)
• Author: Philip Pullman
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Year of Publication: 1995
• Pages: 399

I started this book around the end of September, back during Banned Books Week. I got several pages into the book and then stopped; it was slow going. I started to read a couple pages each day and put it back down again. I brought it with me on my weekend trip to NYC and could not put it down. Not for one second.

On the hour long flight to the city from Rochester, I had read upwards of a hundred pages. For me, this was huge. I read slowly, making sure I catch every word, every meaning. But I could not read this book slowly after the first hump. It’s just impossible. I wanted to know what was going to happen so badly, so passionately, that my eyes flew across the pages—sometimes in bliss, sometimes in near-panic. So I put it down when I had to, and picked it up at every opportunity. I finished the book the next night, and was pleased to remind myself that it was the first part of a trilogy. “Yes!” I thought. “More, more, more!”

(more…)

• 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!