(Late) Autumn Bookhaul

Even if winter is almost here, I have been wanting to post my autumn bookhaul for quite some time now. I bought most of these back in September, but haven't read them all yet (had no time at all). So I'm just going to make a brief introduction to them. 

- Another (Vol. 3 & 4) I got the first volume for my birthday back in June, and really enjoyed it, so I was really looking forward to finishing the series. My friend gave it to me knowing it was a short series, since I am not going to be following typical series with 40, 50 volumes. I have no time and no money for that. But Another was a great manga, and I'm really looking forward to watch the anime. It was creepy and confusing (very, very confusing at first) but everything got sorted out and I'm glad that the ending was unexpected. Sort of. 

- Naked Heat, by Richard Castle (Nikki Heat #2). Yes, my obsession about the show got into my bookshelves. I enjoyed the first book, and since they aren't that expensive I thought about reading the rest of the series. Haven't had time yet, but here it is. It looks good. 

- The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. This is a book I have to read for my English class in school, but I have wanted to read it for years now. I knew I would have to read it in 12th grade, so I just waited for it. And now that it's here I have only 100 pages left and I really love it but, like always, I don't have that much time to read lately... 

- Looking for Alaska, by John Green. I can't believe I haven't read this yet. After TFIOS, Paper Towns and An Abundance of Katherines, there's only this and Will Grayson, Will Grayson. So I need to read this. And it actually looks really good and, you know, it's a John Green. 

- The Slow Regard of Silent Things, by Patrick Rothfuss. I love Patrick Rothfuss. The Name of the Wind is one of my favourite books ever. And when I saw this had come out, and it was about Auri, a character I have always thought she should be more developed, I got really excited. But, you know, Patrick should've been working on Kvothe's next book which I have been waiting for for ages, and not in other works... But it's great anyway. Can't wait to read it. 

So overall they all look pretty good, and I can't wait to read them! I'm still reading stuff from my spring and summer bookhauls, so I still have lots left... My excitement never decreases, though. 

The Fault In Our Stars movie

I finally got to watch TFIOS a couple of weeks ago, and it was everything that I had expected, or even better! :) I was so excited about it, and it did not disappoint me a bit. I am really glad that's happened, because usually almost everything disappoints me... 
The movie, overall, was pretty loyal to the book, and the only things they missed weren't that important, even though I would've loved to see the "Lonely, vaguely, pedophilic swing set seeks the butts of children" scenes :) But I was watching the movie, and I fell for Augustus Waters all over again... Ansel Elgort was great, with his smile and his performance. The cigarette metaphor, all the scenes with Hazel (Shailene did an awesome job too, in my opinion)... I loved it. 
I loved the fact that I finally found out how to pronounce Lidewij's name, which was something I was dying to know while reading the book.
The movie was beautiful... I am so happy about the adaptation to the big screen. John Green should be proud :) And the trip to Amsterdam, and Birdy's Not About Angels in the soundtrack, and Ansel with Shailene... It was great. I was watching, and I suddenly found myself in the part when they're leaving for Amsterdam, and that felt too soon, and then they love each other, and then he says he's sick and then... I started crying in that bench in Amsterdam that morning... And even if everything was sad from that point on, it was beautiful. And the quotes... 
So yeah, it was a great movie, and even if it's sad, which is why some people refuse to watch it, it is so beautiful that deserves us seeing it over and over again. 

Paper Towns, by John Green

Synopsis: 

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life — dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge — he follows.

After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues — and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees of the girl he thought he knew.

John Green never disappoints me, no matter what I read. From TFIOS to An Abundance of Katherines, they are all special in their unique ways. Only John Green can make us laugh, cry and think so deeply with the same page. And Paper Towns was a perfect example of it. 

There’s a problem in this book with verb tenses. Chapter nine in the second part was in present tense, suddenly, when everything had been in past tense and will continue from chapter ten in past tense. That shocked me, because I started reading the chapter and I knew something was different, but it took me some time to notice the verb tenses. And then, the third part is all in present, but that’s fine. The third part was my favorite. The road trip, epic. 

The characters are greatly developed, and real, which is the most important thing. Everyone has their virtues and, more importantly, their flaws, and that’s what I love about John Green’s books. Even Q wonders why he is friends with Ben when he ends up drunk at that party and all that, but Radar reminds him that we should like people for what they are, not because of what we want them to be, and that’s a huge lesson in life. They speak the truth, and that’s pretty valuable. 

Paper Towns tells a story about friendship, love and identity, and it’s full of deep characters that evolve throughout the novel (which is what I value the most) in a very common environment that makes it possible to identify ourselves with them. 

When Margo disappeared, I knew she was going to be disappointing. All those comments Ben made about how she just wanted them to keep her as the centre of their worlds, how she just wanted to be the centre of attention, was exactly as I expected the ending to be. Then we find out she didn’t put those clues out for them to find them, and that she didn’t want to be found. And then Q finally learns that Margo doesn’t exist, not as they want her to be. And that’s what the book is about. There’s a different Margo for every one of them, and that’s what happens in real life. We see things and people the way we’d like them to be, and most of the time, they turn up to be very different from what we imagined them to be like. And that disappoints us. But that’s how we are, that’s how life is, and that’s what John Green is trying to show us. 

The book was fresh, written in this John Green way of his that I’ve learned to know and love. I loved learning about paper towns and contemplating philosophical questions about one’s identity. If you love John Green or simply enjoy new but at the same time old stories, this is your book.

An Abundance of Katherines, by John Green

Synopsis:

When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type happens to be girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact.

On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun--but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl. Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to surprising and heart-changing conclusions in this ingeniously layered comic novel about reinventing oneself.

This book was amazing. I was attracted to it since the moment I first heard about it, and it didn't disappoint me. After reading The Fault In Our Stars, I felt like reading more of John Green, and I've started to really admire him. I want to read Looking for Alaska next. 
So about the Katherines... the title itself was very intriguing, and the synopsis. There's Colin Singleton, and he only dates girls named Katherine, which is incredibly weird. And then you meet Colin and you grow fond of him and all... 
There aren't that many characters in this book. I mean, there's many people in the background, such as the Katherines (Katherine XIX is more important than the rest of them), but there's only a few characters that have importance in the book. There's Colin, and his best friend Hassan, and they both decide to go on this road trip that's supposed to help Colin move on from his last heartbreak, when Katherine XIX dumped him. And then the two guys from Chicago end up in this town Gutshot in Tennessee, in the middle of nowwhere, where the archduke Franz Ferdinand is supposed to be buried. There they meet Lindsey and her mother Hollis, and Lindsey's friends Katrina, Chase and Fulton and her boyfriend Colin. After they're offered a job there, Colin and Hassan decide to stay for a while, and that's where the story takes place, in Gutshot, TN. 
Okay, I kind of felt like Colin and Lindsey were going to end up together since the moment they met. She's a girl, Colin's single, and she's not a Katherine, which is why the story is different from the rest of Colin's life. I really ended up liking Katherine XIX, so I would like to have known more about her, but that's not her story. 
I enjoyed anagrams because it had been a while since I read a book that included them, and I didn't hate the fact that Colin was obsessed with his theorem and maths were used a lot to explain it. Some people that have read it the only thing they do is complain, about anagrams and about maths, but that's a huge part of what makes the story unique. 
I loved the plot. The idea was original and nice, and no one had thought of writing that before John Green did. The characters are developped in a way that reminds me of TFIOS, and I love the way John Green writes. It's beautiful. 
The book is addictive, with all these random facts that Colin knows about everything and this way Green has of making us love the characters. I really, really enjoyed reading it, and I hope to see more of John Green soon :)

The Fault In Our Stars, by John Green

Synopsis:

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.

It was a masterpiece. There was a sudden fever worldwide that made everyone want to read The Fault In Our Stars, by John Green. Everyone talked about it, a movie was going to be made... So, of course, I had to read it and see what all this fuss was about. And then there was no going back. My life changed after that. When I read the plot, I was sure that it was going to be just like every other cancer story, where everything tries to be happy but fails completely, causing it to be a sad book with an even sadder ending. That's how cancer books end, with the death of the main character. So I was sure that Hazel was going to die before even opening the book. But the book (in general) wasn't a sad cancer book. I think that the feeling that John Green was trying to make us feel is happiness, the joy of being alive. 

I'll say that when I read it I didn't have the physical book, because I thought it wouldn't be necessary, but when I finished it I looked for it until I found it. Now I have the physical book that I haven't opened, but it's just perfect to look at it with wonder and mixed feelings. 

So about the book... I loved the characters. Hazel is a shy, kind of lonely person who discovers her true happy self when she meets Augustus. And Gus is such an awesome character! I love how he speaks, how he acts. He's got this special way of filling a room with his personality, he expresses himself in a really unique way, and I love him for that. 

I really liked all the plot revolving about Hazel and Augustus's relationship in a deeper and subtler level than most stories usually do. Love isn't easy, love isn't all rainbows and colours, and that's what they're trying to demonstrate. And the best thing about it is that it is done in a subtle way, focusing the plot in other things, like An Imperial Affliction, the book by Peter van Houten that causes Hazel's wish of going to Amsterdam and other main actions. The book is really deep, expressing the complexity of being a teenager, the complexity of love, the complexity of being one of those kids with cancer that people think are too sick to be normal. But Hazel and Augustus, despite their cancer, are very normal teenagers. And the way John Green has of dealing with that is awesome. 

The title was the first thing that caught my attention in the book. The Fault In Our Stars. That's a weird title. But then I read the book, and then the Julius Caesar quote appeared: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/ but in ourselves that we are underlings." That quote means that it isn't fate that makes us underlings, but ourselves. I really like that quote. That being a Shakespeare quote makes it perfect :)

And a movie is being made of The Fault In Our Stars, with Shailene Woodsley as Hazel and Ansel Elgort as Augustus. The weird thing about them is that they're siblings in their movie Divergent, so it's going to be weird to see who I'll see as Tris and Caleb to be Hazel and Augustus. But I think they're fine as them, I like them. 

So to end this, I have only one thing left to say: you must read the book. Okay? Okay.