March262012
Seven long months ago, Willow’s parents died in a terrible car accident. The twist? 16 year old Willow was driving. She secretly begins cutting herself to block the pain. It is working for her, until one boy, named Guy, discovers her terrible secrets- and threatens to tell her brother. How will he react? How will she? Can Willow forgive herself? Will her brother forgive her? The questions keep building until Willow feels like she can’t take it anymore. Will this boy help her? Or just make things more complicated?
This book is more than a ‘self-harm book’- it is the story of struggle, of forgiveness, and of sorrow. I strongly encourage you to read it.
Learn more about Julia Hoban and her books at:
http://www.zimbio.com/YA+Book+Reviews/articles/6/Interview+Julia+Hoban+Author+Willow+TSS
Ally’s rating: 9/10 Stars
Kaitlyn’s rating: 8.5/10 Stars
March252012
Wow- words cannot describe how both of us feel about this book. By far the best book I have ever read- and I have read a lot of books. I literally could not put it down, and reread it often.
This is the story of a teenage girl named Hazel Grace Lancaster. At age 13 she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and the cancer has spread to her lungs. She has never been anything but terminal, and thinks of herself as a ticking bomb- ready to explode suddenly at any moment. Her life isn’t much more than her parents, her cancer, and America’s Next Top Model- her favorite show. Her mother forces her to go to a support group for cancer, saying “Hazel, you deserve a life.” Hazel fails to see how that constitutes as a life, but goes to make her parents happy. As Hazel says in the book, “..the only thing worse from biting from cancer when you’re 16, is having a kid who bites it at 16.”
Her parents are easily her two best friends- until she meets a drop dead gorgeous boy named Augustus Waters. Augustus shows her more to life and she quickly falls for him. Both Augustus and Hazel are obsessed with this book, An Imperial Affliction, by the reclusive Peter Van Houten. The book is Hazel’s favorite, and offers no closure to the lives of the characters, as it ends in the middle of a sente
The Fault in Our Stars is not a Cancer Book- it is a book about two you kids who happen to have cancer, and how they handle the knowledge they will inevitably die and be forgotten, and to a bigger extent, the inevitability of human oblivion.
This book will have laughing on one page, and crying on the next. A must read. I’m a huge fan of John Green, and I encourage you to be too. Learn more about him and The Fault in Our Stars on his you tube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers?ob=0&feature=results_main
Ally’s rating: 11/10 stars.
Kaitlyn’s rating: 15000/10 stars
