The concept of The Fault In Our Stars is a simple one: it’s a love story between two teenagers, both of which happen to have cancer.
Hazel is a terminal cancer patient, who has been bought a few additional years of life by an experimental cancer drug. She is encouraged practically forced to attend a regular Cancer Kids Support Group by her mother who feels she should socialise more.
Into the Support Group enters love interest Augustus Waters (Gus), who is there to support his friend Isaac and is in recovery from cancer himself. He is instantly captivated by Hazel.
As Hazel and Augustus start to get to know one another and get close, a predictable plot twist means that everything turns on it’s head for Hazel.
Hazel is no longer the only the ticking time bomb, ready to explode and hurt those close to her. She is at risk of being in an explosion herself. This role reversal was simple, yet at the same time, very clever.
The Fault In Our Stars is exceptionally well written, captivates the reader from the first page and is perfectly paced. It is a superb novel.
The reader will laugh at the many funny scenes in the book, be touched by the tender scenes and be occasionally saddened at the knowledge and recognition that Hazel & Gus’ relationship will end prematurely.
Without giving any spoilers away, there’s a great and unexpected twist at the end of the book that will leave the reader feeling uplifted and believe in true love from beyond the grave.
The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks was disappointing. Although it was informative and a worthwhile read if you’ve ever contemplated or seriously thought about what you’d do in a zombie apocalypse, it lacked any real hooks to keep the reader captivated.
The Zombie Survival Guide is split into sections, covering: The Undead, Weapons and Combat Techniques, Defence, being On The Run and going On The Attack.
The is a section of Recorded Attacks – evidence of zombie outbreaks from history that were both fascinating and enjoyable to read.
UK readers may dislike the Americanism in The Zombie Survival Guide. However to be fair, Brooks did address this in an Author’s Note right at the beginning of the book.
Overall The Zombie Survival Guide is worth a read, mainly for the Recorded Attacks section at the end of the book.
Run is a touching and sentimental novel by the marvellous Ann Patchett.
Run starts with a family dispute over the ownership of a statue of Mary. Traditionally it had been handed down from mother to daughter, the mother choosing the daughter who most looked like the statue.
But Bernadette and Doyle didn’t have any daughters. They’d had Sullivan and later had adopted Tip and Teddy. Tip and Teddy loved the statue and it reminded them of their mother who’d died when they were little. Doyle had broken family tradition by giving it to the boys.
Some years later on a snowy and cold night, Tip argues with Doyle and steps out into the road without looking. He is pushed out of the way of an on coming car by Tennessee. Tennessee is a woman that has been watching Tip and Teddy all their lives in the background. Tennessee is taken to hospital with severe injuries, leaving Kenya, her daughter with no one to look after her.
Doyle, Tip and Teddy decide to take Kenya in. And this is where the revelations start. Doyle, Tip and Teddy are forced to confront some truth’s about their lives and Kenya suddenly has the opportunity to fulfil her dreams.
Patchett’s voice is soothing, as it takes you on a journey into these character’s lives. Her description creates an almost film like moving image in your mind. The words in Run just flow, making it an easy and pleasurable read. The pacing is just right and the ending brings everything together beautifully.
In short Run is how creative writing should be done. Creative writing is an art and one that Patchett is superb at.
Run is available to buy on Amazon and at all good bookshops.
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey is addictive like crack cocaine. Once you pick it up and start reading, you’ll find it near impossible to put back down.
From the cover:
Aged just twenty-three, James Frey had destroyed his body and his mind almost beyond repair. When he enters a rehabilitation centre to try to reclaim his life, he has to fight to determine what future, if any, he has. His lack of self-pity, cynicism and piety gives him an unflinching honesty – a fearless candour that is at once charming and appalling, searing and darkly funny.
(From: Frey, 2004)
Frey takes the reader on his rollercoaster of a journey to recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. It starts with him waking up on a plane with no memory of how he got there, what happened to his face or where he’s going.
is set during Frey’s stay in rehab; is well paced and has plenty of tension, conflict and resolution. Both internally and externally. He recalls memories of his dysfunctional and chaotic alcohol and drug using past.
Stylistically A Million Little Pieces lacked speech marks, but this was possibly deliberate. Not having speech marks was a noticeable stylistic change to the normal layout of a book. Frey was probably using this to subtly hint that his story wasn’t like the story of most people. Frey’s lack of dialogue tags was generally acceptable, but on the odd occasion where Frey had written a scene with a group of people, it did get difficult to establish who had said what.
Towards the end of A Million Little Pieces it began to feel fictional. As I was coming to the end of the book and had enjoyed reading it, I decided to look into other books that Frey had written.
Oprah had to respond to these revelations and interviewed Frey on a few occasions. The most recent, a few years after A Million Little Pieces was exposed as being in part fictional is available to watch below:
I can understand while some people felt lied to, as A Million Little Pieces was promoted and marketed as a memoir.
But I wasn’t in the slightest bit surprised that some of A Million Little Pieces was fact and some was fiction. Because that’s how it read. Who wouldn’t change some of their past if they had the chance? Don’t we all do that all the time? Change things to make them sound better or worse than they actually are with the aim of making our stories more interesting to our friends, family, co-workers, etc. Can we really blame Frey for doing the same for the reader?
Regardless A Million Little Pieces is still a great read. Worth reading if you are interested in addiction, crime, alcohol, drugs, rehab and recovery. Just hold on is a phrase often repeated in the book and was a phrase that I adopted when I was suffering from severe clinical depression.
Antony Simpson is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk.
