Paper Towns Movie Review

*SPOILERS PRESENT*

John Green happens to be one of my favorite authors. I found out about his work a few years back and since then have read The Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns, Looking For Alaska (which is my favorite), and have attempted to read An Abundance of Katherines, which at some point I will finish. I have watched almost every vlogbrothers video, read Esther Earl's This Star Won't Go Out, celebrate Esther Day, live by the moto of DFTBA, seen TFiOS and now Paper Towns in theaters, and done everything I can to be a part of Nerdfighteria. 

Just after I read Paper Towns, maybe a few weeks later, I found out that it was going to be made into a movie starring Nat Wolff, my very first celebrety crush from his Naked Brother's Band days.

I was so excited that I screamed, found my stepmom, and forced the book into her hands. She read it, loved it, and we saw the movie together today. 

First off, Nat was amazing! I loved how he portrayed Isaac in TFiOS where he had few lines, but seeing him as the star solidified how incredible he is. He got the awkwardness yet strange bouts of confidence just right. 

Secondly, Cara's American accent was on point. There were times where I could hear the British coming out, but that's to be expected and wasn't horribly noticeable and maybe it was just me, which is very likely. I wish there were a bit more Margo lines because I feel like the book had so much more of her character that was really needed to empathize with Margo in the movie. That made it much harder for me to like Margo in the film whereas in the book I liked her because we heard more of her thoughts, her commentary, and you could really imagine the hell that was being trapped within your own brain, with all of the characters. 

 Plus who else could pull of those eyebrows? I wish I could. And her facial expressions = GREAT!!!

Radar, Ben, Lacey, and Angela were all how I imagined them. I loved the friendships betweeen Radar, Ben, and Q (especially the party scene and the BEER CAN SWORD). I also really liked that Lacey went on the road trip with them. And I loved  that Angela and Radar's relationship was so adorable. 

Now comes the criticism. I didn't really like how they put the road trip before prom instead of after graduation. One of the best parts of the road trip in the book was them being naked underneath their cap and gowns and being uncomfortable. I also hated how their was the time crunch to get back before prom which caused tension between Radar and Ben with Q. And it threw off the ending as well. In the book, because school is over, the gang waits for Q while he talks to an at first angry Margo. And it ends with them saying that they would see each other next summer and to keep in touch. Whereas in the movie it ends with Q meeting up with the boys to part ways (Radar giving them Black Santas) and Q not knowing where or how Margo is and also seeming to not care so much either. That really bothered me. 

I loved the book. And I liked the movie. I feel that if I hadn't read the book then I would have LOVED the movie but because I have it was really only likable in comparison. I would watch it again but I was still disappointed in some of the changes. And really the only thing that caused that disappointment was the time change of the road trip. 

BY THE WAY, the van's collision with the cow was still my favorite part, just like the book. 

Any way I love John Green and can not wait for the movie adaption of Looking For Alaska. 

Blind ~ Rachel DeWoskin

When Emma Sasha Silver loses her eyesight in a nightmare accident, she must relearn everything from walking across the street to recognizing her own sisters to imagining colors. One of seven children, Emma used to be the invisible kid, but now it seems everyone is watching her. And just as she's about to start high school and try to recover her friendships and former life, one of her classmates is found dead in an apparent suicide. Fifteen and blind, Emma has to untangle what happened and why  - in order to see for herself what makes life worth living. 

*Minor Spoilers*

Emma is such a complex character who may have originally been simple but is now just trying to cope with being blind by searching for answers in everything around her. She just wishes to go back to her life, before she was blind, be invisible, hang out with her best friend, and make sense of the world. Which isn't that what we are trying to do in some way or another?

DeWoskin portrayed coming to terms with blindness and learning how to survive while being blind so wonderfully. It really allowed you to understand her mindset, how she "saw" the world, what darkness and color meant to her. She had a new found insight that further set her apart from the world, making being "normal" even harder. 

The relationships between Emma and each of her seven siblings was also beautifully done. I have ten siblings, so I get how the relationships differ, your love differs even when you love them equally, it's different. It was described wonderfully. 

I also enjoyed the friendship that she had with her best friend Logan. They'd known each other since grade school, had a rule book that they followed, and Logan was there for her after the accident. 

I loved so much of this book but I think that much of it wasn't needed. The plot wasn't really explicitly determined. I feel that there were many plots. Which is wonderful at times if they are delved into equally but I feel that they weren't treated fairly. The fight with Logan, which in the end was resolved, but still left with out the discussion that would be the resolution. Her crush on Zach, just ended. We never learn more about what amounted between her and Coltrane. There was just so much that was left undetermined, too many questions. 

Pages: 394                                                                                         Rate:3/5

Stay ~ Deb Caletti

Everything had changed and everything would stay changed because that's what happens when fear gets in. 

Clara's relationship with Christian is intense from the start and like nothing she's ever experienced before. But what starts as devotion quickly becomes obsession, and it's almost too late before Clara realizes how far gone Christian is -  and what he's willing to do to make her stay.

Now Clara has left the city - and Christian - behind. No one back home knows where she is, but she still struggles to shake off her fear. She knows Christian won't let her go that easily, and that no matter how far she runs, it may not be far enough....

*Minor Spoilers*

I don't recall ever reading something where Domestic Violence was so honestly portrayed in a teenage relationship. In this case. the type of Domestic Violence in Clara's relationship was mainly verbal (intimidation, abusive language, accusations).

The chapters bounce back and forth in between where Clara is now and how she got there. We experience how passionate and innocent her relationship with Christian started as and then how fearful and unhappy it was. Caletti really puts us in Clara's mind, of how she saw it then and how she sees it now. Caletti also explores how Domestic Violence relationship affects those around the couple, like Clara's father and best friend. 

I loved Clara's relationship with her father and how they were experiencing bouts of fear together. I love their little games and how they communicate. It was really great to read a novel where the daughter actually has a good relationship with her parents, in this case just her father, her mother is dead. 

The setting is also so wonderful and strange at the same time. It is set in a beach side town with strange ghost stories. And their are places like Deception Point, Possession Point, and the ship that Clara's friends run, Obsession. The irony in the names was great though, and Clara even discusses that with her father, who says, "fate has a sick sense of humour."

The way Caletti describes Clara's struggles in moving forward and opening up to people again is wonderful and honest. I know people who have been in abusive relationships and I have seen them go through those same struggles and that is why this book is so important. Their are teenagers, as well as adults, who experience these types of situations and I think many of them need to know that they are not alone, that people understand what they are experiencing, and that they can get out of it no matter how difficult and scary. 

Pages: 313                                                                                                Rate: 5/5

She Is Not Invisible ~ Marcus Sedgwick

That feeling that coincidences give us tells us they mean something... But what? What do they mean?

Laureth Peak's father has taught her to look for recurring events, patterns, and numbers - a skill at which she's remarkably talented. When he goes missing while researching coincidence for a new book. Laureth and her younger brother fly from London to New York and must unravel a series of cryptic messages and frightening clues to find him. The complication: Laureth is blind. Reliant on her otherr senses and on her brother to father will take all her skill at spotting the extraordinary, and sometimes dangerous connections in a world full of darkness. 

*Minor Spoilers*

This is the only novel by Sedgwick that I have read but it was well written and the characters were amazingly developed. I really loved reading about how Laureth sees the words without her eye sight. I've never read a book where the main character was blind. I've seen tv shows or movies that way but experiencing it through the book is much different and really enjoyable. I also loved her relationship with her little brother, Benjamin. I'm not exactly sure what his disability is other than that it really messes with electronics and they call it the Benjamin Effect.

I really felt for Laureth as she searched for her father whilst trying to keep Benjamin calm and relying on him to be her eyes on occasion. In her own city, her own country, being blind isn't all that hard for her because she was raised in that area. But being in a completely different country at 16 with you 7 year old brother and trying to find her father.

It was really well written but it was really slow moving. I much prefer a more fast paced novel.

Pages: 216                                                                                           Rate: 3/5

We All Looked Up ~ Tommy Wallach

Before Ardor came, we let ourselves be defined by labels - the Athlete, the Slut, the Slacker, the Overachiever. But then we all looked up, and everything changed. They said the asteroid would be here in two months. That gave us two months to leave our labels behind. Two months to become something bigger than what we'd been, something hat would last even after the end. Two months to really live.

*Minor Spoilers*

The most appropriate way to describe this novel is as the Apocalyptic Breakfast Club. It has this Science Fiction element but the story really revolves around the characters trying to discover who they are when they have such an undefined amount of time left to really live.

Each chapter revolved around one of the four main characters. There was Peter who was set to go to Stanford and become a professional athlete or coach. There was Eliza who gained the reputation of Slut after having her first conversation with Peter and making out with him in the black room, while he had a girlfriend of a couple years. Then there was Andy, who really didn't care about anything besides getting high and hanging out with Bobo. And finally there was Anita, who's parents put way to much pressure on her and who really just wanted to be a singer.

One night all of their lives change because an asteroid known as Ardor is spotted and it is determined that there is a 66.66% chance that it will collide with the earth and kill absolutely everyone. So the four main characters form a Karass, which is a theory by Keith Vonnegut that there are groups of people who unknown to themselves are linked to fulfill the will of God or some other fate.

There is some romance, abuse, self-discovery, crime, corruption, and death. I won't tell you who dies but let's just say it made me so fucking sad! Like why Tommy did you kill him. 

Tommy also produced the album accompaniment to the book titled We All Look Up: A Album and it can be bought on itunes or listened to on his website www.tommywallach.com or on my spotify playlist https://open.spotify.com/user/1262452242/playlist/4TsCCB6w9Jdumiz0dB9BAA. many of the songs are those written and performed in the book and then he has others that just revolve around the themes of the novel. 

Pages: 370                                                                              Rate: 4/5

Red Queen ~ Victoria Aveyard

Mare Barrow's world is divided by blood -- those with red and those with silver. Mare and her family are lowly Reds, destined to serve the Silver elite whose supernatural abilities make them nearly gods. Mare steals what she can to help her family survive, but when her best friend is conscripted into the army she gambles everything to win his freedom. A twist of fate leads her to the royal palace itself, where, in front of the king and all his nobles, she discovers a power of her own - an ability she didn't know she had. Except ...  her blood is Red. 

To hide this impossibility, the king forces her into the role of a lost Silver princess and betroths her to one of his own sons. As Mare is drawn further into the Silver World, she risks her new position to aid the Scarlet Guard -  the leaders of the Red rebellion. Her actions put into motion a deadly and violent dance, pitting prince against prince - and Mare against her own heart.  

*Minor Spoilers*

Why did no one tell me that I was going to become addicted to this story!? Why did no one warn me that I am going to have to wait until 2016 for the sequel?! And why do I get so attached to fictional worlds inhabited by fictional characters living fictional lives!?

So I believe that I have said this before, but fantasy hasn't been one of my favorite genres in a long time. I used to be obsessed with it.I have an entire shelf in my room dedicated to it; contains the first two books of the Beautiful Creatures series, the last three of the Vampire Academy series, all of the Bloodlines series, two of the Morganville Vampires series, many of the House of Night series, and all of the Twilight series.  And I obviously love the Harry Potter series, I mean come on, it's my entire childhood. But as of late, I have been more into memoirs, like American Sniper by Chris Kyle, A Work in Progress by Connor Franta, and I'm ordering some more off of amazon; so when I actually became immersed in Red Queen, I was completely shocked.

The characters in this novel are beautifully portrayed. I love Mare, a.k.a Lady Mareena Titanos, lost Silver Princess, *cough, cough* she is just the start to the equality that I hope builds after some much needed rebellion and discovery. I originally loved Prince Maven, whom Mareena is betrothed too, but that drastically changes in the end. But Prince Cal, from the very beginning, even during his torturous stages, I loved him. 

Aveyard's writing throughout the entire novel made you empathize with the characters even though our world is drastically different than theirs.  She kept the story fast paced and you never could really predict what was going to happen or how it was all going to go down. I also loved the setting of the novel, with all of the Red villages it almost reminded me of Panem from the Hunger Games trilogy. This is just beautifully written, the cover is gorgeously morbid. I'm just obsessed!

Pages: 383                                                                             Rate: 5/5 

Percy Jackson & The Sea of Monsters ~ Rick Riordan

When Thalia's tree is mysteriously poisoned, the magical borders of Camp Half-Blood begin to fail. Now Percy and his friends have just days to find the only magic item powerful to save the camp before it is overrun by monsters. The catch: they must sail into the Sea of Monsters to find it. Along the way, Percy must stage a daring rescue operation to save his old friend Grover, and he learns a terrible secret about his own family, which makes him question whether being the son of Poseidon is an honor or a curse.

*Minor Spoilers*

Rick Riordan's second installment of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series is well written, fast paced, and over all a good book. Being as it is originally written for late elementary and middle school students, the language and plot is fairly easy to follow. If you enjoy Greek mythology or want something that contains a bit of it but doesn't overwhelm you the the complexities of it then this series is the way to go. These last two books have presented you with the basics of many of the Greek myths centered around the more well known Gods and monsters.

I enjoyed seeing Percy have a better relationship with his mom without that abusive boyfriend of hers. I also really liked how he was so excited to go back to camp and when he learned that the camp was in danger he would do anything to save it. After all, camp is really where he began to feel accepted and figure out that he wasn't the only one out there who had all of these troubles in the regular world. 

What I did feel was missing though was more character development with Percy. Yes. He accepted his Cyclops brother. He worked well with Annabeth to save Grover. And I know that he began to understand that his father really does care for him. But these weren't really worked in throughout the series, they more or less happened at the end which I wasn't a great fan of. 

I really did love this story though. I loved how Percy and Annabeth became better friends, even without the initial help of Grover. And I really did love how the ending left me with so many questions. What is going to happen with Thalia? What does her return mean for the prophecy? What roles are Zeus and Posedian going to play in their children's lives? Can Athena please make an appearance for Annabeth soon? And so many more.

                                  Pages: 279                            Rate: 7/10 

Saint Anything ~ Sarah Dessen

Peyton, Sydney’s charismatic older brother, has always been the star of the family, receiving the lion’s share of their parents’ attention and—lately—concern. When Peyton’s increasingly reckless behavior culminates in an accident, a drunk driving conviction, and a jail sentence, Sydney is cast adrift, searching for her place in the family and the world. When everyone else is so worried about Peyton, is she the only one concerned about the victim of the accident? 

Enter the Chathams, a warm, chaotic family who run a pizza parlor, play bluegrass on weekends, and pitch in to care for their mother, who has multiple sclerosis. Here Sydney experiences unquestioning acceptance. And here she meets Mac, gentle, watchful, and protective, who makes Sydney feel seen, really seen, for the first time.

                                                  * Minor Spoilers*

Sarah Dessen has always been one of my favorite authors, ever since I read Along For The Ride two summers ago. The only way that I can explain her is that she writes Nicholas Sparks style novels for teenagers without all of the sadness, but with the teen angst, confusion, and finding one's self. I have read the majority of her novels and quickly at that. Each novel sucks you into its world and Saint Anything is no different. 

Sydney is one of Sarah Dessen's most relatable characters, in my opinion. She is a people-pleaser, a good student, and she just wants to be understood and seen. In a way, I see myself in her so much, which may have made me love her even more. I also love how she is struggling with what her brother has done. He permanently paralyzed a young, innocent guy her age. Because of this she is even more withdrawn from her brother, who used to be her best friend. Her mother is even more engrossed in Peyton's life than she was before, Her father is out of town on business even more than usual. 

Sydney's response to her brother's incarceration is to switch schools, to start over where she won't be followed by her brother's criminal activity legacy. This is where the amazingness of this story really begins. Enter the Chathams, first comes Layla. She hates school, always picks the worst guys to be in a relationship with, LOVES FRENCH FRIES, and is the most loyal of friends ever. She and Sydney become really close and Layla is really the one to save Syd from Ames (friend of Peyton's who is really fucking creepy) first. Then we meet Mac, who is Layla's older brother, he used to be fat but now he is a major health freak (HE IS PERFECT! *fictional boyfriend? Yes!*). And once he and Sydney begin their relationship my heart literally jumped out of my chest from excitement. 

I don't want to give away too much so I am keeping in a lot of the beauty of this novel because my recap will never give this book justice. In my opinion this is the second best Dessen novel, only coming after Along For The Ride.

                                     Pages: 432                                  Rate: 5/5   

Isla and the Happily Ever After ~ Stephanie Perkins

Love ignites in the City That Never Sleeps, but can it last?

Hopeless romantic Isla has had a crush on introspective cartoonist Josh since their first year at the School of America in Paris. And after a chance encounter in Manhattan over the summer, romance might be closer than Isla imagined. But as they begin their senior year back in France, Isla and Josh are forced to confront the challenges every young couple must face, including family drama, uncertainty about their college futures, and the very real possibility of being apart. 

*Minor Spoilers*

Isla and the Happily Ever After is a YA romance novel and I wish it was a series because I relate to Isla (pronounced eye-la; like island without the nd) so much, minus the wealth, the multilingual skills, and the dual citizenship part. She is an avid reader with low self-esteem and an amazing best friend who many people think she is dating but they are like brother-sister. 

She has no idea what she wants to do after graduating high school except that she wants to be with Josh. Like Isla, Josh is from Manhattan, NY but he attends high school in Paris, France. He's an artist who pretends not to care about anything but you can tell that he really does. 

This is a wonderfully written story, with vividly different characters, in a beautiful setting. I was hooked very early on. 

Pages: 339                                                                  Rate: 5/5

14th Deadly Sin ~ James Patterson & Maxine Paetro

A new terror is sweeping the streets of San Francisco. And the killers look a lot like cops...

As Detective Lindsay Boxer investigates whether the perpetrators are brilliant impostors or police officers gone rogue, she receives a chilling warning to back off.

On the other side of the city, an innocent woman is murdered in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses. But there are no clues and no apparent motive.

With killers in disguise, a maniac murderer on the loose, and danger getting ever closer to Lindsay’s door, could this be one case too many for the Women’s Murder Club?

The 14th book in the Women's Murder Club series is just as great as the first 13. Patterson never ceases to amaze me. I love the short chapters that are his style of writing and play so wonderfully in this series with the many characters and simultaneous plots. 

What I love most about this series is the fact that each book revolves around a different murder or set of murders but the characters' stories all stay the same and we travel through their lives with them. I love exploring Lindsay Boxer's relationship with her husband, daughter, Homicide partner Inspector Conklin, and her best friends. I adore each of her best friends who all have vital parts in the Women's Murder Club; the Medical Examiner Claire, the crime reporter Cindy, and the attorney Yuki. 

James Patterson's writing is impecable in all of his books but for some reason I am most attached to this series. Maybe because it is so long and we know so much about it because of its length or maybe because I just like this style best. Either way it is amazing.

Pages: 349                                                                                          Rate: 4/5