John Green | Authors Notes

Hello everyone! Today, I want to talk to you all about the mighty John Green. Currently, I’ve read 4 of his books and so I feel I’m finally in a position to talk about him. I apologise in advance if this post has a slightly erratic format, but I’m trying a few things out so bear with me.

Books I read (in order of preference)

·         The Fault in Our Starts

·         An Abundance of Katherines

·         Will Grayson, Will Grayson

·         Paper Towns (this one’s really tied with Will Grayson, Will Grayson… but that wouldn’t have fit with my OCD eye!)

Note: I have not yet read Looking For Alaska, however I have it on my long term TBR and am hoping to have it read before Christmas, I’ll probably do a review on it then.

Style

Let’s start with the positives. John Green uses language in a way that many young adult authors fail to appreciate. He uses language that is intriguing and makes you want to read on through the dry sections, even if the plot is slow.

Plots

Let’s be honest, many of John Green’s books don’t actually have a plot (Will Grayson, I’m looking at you here) however, the one’s that do are normally quite simple. I don’t take anything away from him for this – there are a lot of authors out there who could take a leaf out of his book and calm the plot a little – I don’t mind that there’s no action, and that a lot of the plot’s tend to be based on thoughts and analysis of simple situations, rather than guns and passion. Overall, his plot lines are often refreshing, and his style makes them tolerable.

Characters

This is where everything goes wrong. John Green basically has two characters he centres every book around.

1. The outsider boy who has an analytical mind. He’s sarcastic, reclusive and generally a bit weird.
2. The ‘cool’ girl. Normally, she’s not popular, but she is usually associated with reading or indie music (making her cool to the reader and the outsider boy). This is the character who normally pulls the boy out of his shell.

Now, there are further similarities (3. The outsider boy usually has a male friend with a huge personality that allows the outsider boy to remain a recluse) but they offer a little more variation. The book which has broken away from this stereotype the most is TFIOS, as it’s characters  are different (not necessarily better, but different)

Pet Peeves

He uses metaphors way too much. Just saying. WAY too much.

Books I liked

Really, the only book I’d say I liked and want to read again is TFIOS. I felt that this book could easily be studied in school because of it’s vast use of methods and powerful characterisation and plot development. I would however like to point out that I didn’t cry, but I’m made of stone.

Books I didn’t really enjoy

This is basically everything else, I’m not going to go into too much detail on this (since I love the Vlog Brothers and I love John Green… I just don’t like his books a whole lot)

An Abundance of Katherines – a little too much use of maths terminology, it made the story disjointed and meant the plot moved incredibly slowly. (But I loved the ending)

Will Grayson, Will Grayson – Expresses a crudity that I haven’t seen in other John Green books. The characters are ‘typical’ boys who use disgusting language and have conversations that, quite frankly, I despised reading and made me want to throw my kindle out the window. (However, after the first 60% it was okay… but just okay.)

Paper Towns – I hated all the characters. The plot didn’t really do it for me, and the ending didn’t make up for its flaws at all (Sorry if you love this book, but I really, really didn’t)

Overall

If you liked Paper Towns, you’ll probably like his other books too. If you like his style, you’ll make it through them all. If you can’t stand boys talking about dicks for 200 pages… don’t read Will Grayson, Will Grayson.

What do you think about these books? Are you a John Green fan?

xx