New! Author Profile: John Green.

John Green

 Notable Works:

• Looking for Alaska
• An Abundance of Katherines
• Paper Towns
• Will Grayson, Will Grayson (with David Levithan)
• The Fault In Our Stars.

Short Story in Let It Snow with Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle.

Other Work:

The Vlogbrothers (with brother Hank).

Crash Course (History and Lit)

The Art Assignment (with wife Sarah)

If you've been anywhere near a bookshop in the last 2 years, read the paper, watched the TV or gone anywhere near the vicinity of the internet lately chances are you've heard or encountered some mention of John Green or his massively successful The Fault In Our Stars. (both pictured above.)

With the imminent release of the film adaptation* of TFIOS (the initialism by which all fans refer to the book),I felt it was time to profile the Young Adult Lit PHENOMENON that is John Green. 

The runaway success of TFIOS still surprises Green, the book is ubitquitous and it is therefore unsurprising then that it has been adapted for film. The shock about the whole affair is something Green regularly expresses in interviews and on his videoblog, which he shares with brother Hank.

To date Green has written 5 books (pictured above, I borrowed my lovely house mate's cos all but one of mine are at my parents house), all of which have been successful but none to the level of TIFOS, a Short Story in Christmas Collection "Let It Snow" and is  always busy with his YouTube based projects supported and enjoyed by his many, many fans also known as Nerdfighters.

I was slow off the mark in coming to the John Green is awesome party. There is a weird hipsterish part of me that refuses to believe the hype, it cries that the fuss is unfounded and it will be a waste of time. It is almost invariably wrong. (Although its frequently right as well... World Cup, I'm looking at you...)

Despite this sloth, I first heard of Green around about 5 years ago, around the time Will Grayson, Will Grayson came out and my friend who shall be called only Peanut, he knows who he is, got his fanboy on so hard not a soul in college was unaware of the books publication, not least because he went round with his face stuck in it the day it came out. (Nut - you're still awesome). At the time however, I didn't understand the fuss in the least, probably because when I asked Conor for clarification he dismissed it as "something to do with an internet nerd that Dom, Laura, and Josh get their knickers in a twist over". After that I gave it no further thought.

Until 2 years later when I finally caved and watched some Vlogbrothers videos, which then became my chief procrastination material for the rest of 1st year. And yet I still held out. 

Until last year, bored stiff in Germany I wandered into the local branch of Osiander and their English Language sound and picked up Looking For Alaska, figuring if I was actually going to start reading them I should at least start at the beginning. I left the store feeling robbed by a store with the cheek to charge VAT on books, toddled home to the rear end of the middle of nowhere and started to read. 

I didn't stop until I'd finished. 

Green writes YA because he loves "the intensity teenagers bring to not just first love but also the first time you're grappling with grief, at least as a sovereign being - the first time you're taking on why people suffer and whether there's meaning in life and whether meaning is constructed or derived. Teenagers feel what you concluded about those questions is going to matter. And they're dead right. It matters for adults tto, but we've almost taken too much power away from ourselves"1. And this shines through in his writing, he does not talk down to his mainly teenage audience but rather on a level with wit and intelligence. His writing is bitter-sweet, hilarious and insightful. From first love, and the voyage of self discovery to suicide and the meaning of life, Green's writing is varied and full of what the internet terms "the feels".

As a fan, I could gush for hours about the emotional roller-coaster that is TFIOS gave me and how it was the first evening in a long time to make me fall off my bed laughing before making me weep like a a baby; to the fact that I finished it and turned straight back to the beginning and jumped straight back in because I couldn't process everything I'd just read. The Brown called it predictable.  She has studied lit for far to long.

I could point to the irony of a man who spends most of his career writing male protagonists only to have his biggest success with a female protagonist. I could grouse about how I felt Will Grayson dragged at the beginning and that Tiny was just too camp and that both wills were kinda whiny and it felt a bit like the weak point link in the chain.

I could about the outstanding realistic rounded personalities of his characters and the touching laugh out loud, riotous energy that he deftly weaves in with the low points or quiet emotional moments that will make you think, question, hope, break your heart, and inspire you to remember the beauty of life. 

But I wont, because all my effusions are those of a highly subjective John Green fan and we can get boring. Trust me, I watch the faces of my friends glaze as I engage in a Nerdfighter love-in with another fan, I remember being that person glazed in confusion.

What I will do however is tell you that if someone asks "D'ya wanna go see The Fault In Our Stars?" Your immediate response is "Yes, but first we read the book". That is your only response. Green has crossed from the narrow and unjustly persecuted realm of YA into the realm of general fiction shelves for a reason. His writing respects no age boundaries and appeals to the teenager that lives inside all of us, by turns both cynical and in awe of the world.

Now, I'm off to chew my nails in terror as to what they've done to the book, but John likes it so hopefully I shan't be sat there ranting at Hannah in the cinema like I was in Divergent but that's another blog...

For now there are a reviews of TFIOS and  Looking for Alaska .

Bethx

The Fault In Our Stars is released nationwide next Thursday (June 15th), Starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort.

Looking for Alaska is a book of mad pranks, first love and huge loss. Oh and a casual side theme of class division. Miles Halter is starting a new private school, leaving behind a lonely existence in Florida. Nothing could prepare him for Culver Creek and the hurricane that is Alaska Young. Over the course of the school year he will form proper friendships for the first time, get his first girlfriend, fall in love for the first time, and get entangled in Alaska's world filled with pranks hi-jinks and very confusing behaviour. She turns his life upside down and will leave him changed forever. It's a beautiful book full of all the behaviours indulged in by a teenager enjoying their first taste of independence. Its a tale in which teenagers come to terms and grapple with their own mortality after the tragic events around which the whole book turns. Its also wickedly funny, and you will learn more about the last words of famous people than you ever knew existed.

The Fault In Our Stars.

Hazel Grace Lancaster has cancer. She has been nothing but terminal since the day she was diagnosed a miracle drug has bought her some time but she's still going to die. She views herself as a time bomb and as such has isolated herself from the world, only going to the support group because it makes her mum happy. And then she meets Gus. Gus turns her world upside down, and helps her to live life again and to see herself not as a time bomb but as a human with as much right to love and relationships as everyone else. Over the course of the books 313 pages I laughed, I cried and I came away hopeful. This is not a book about cancer. This is a book about someone who just happens to have cancer. This is a book about living. About living life as much as you possibly can. It like every other book handles big themes like life and death and everything in between. It is beautiful simple and unadorned and unashamedly intelligent. If they muck up the movie I'll cry even more than I did at the awful twist two thirds of the way through.