It’s a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don’t give it the power to do its killing.

CBR10Bingo – So Popular!

Here’s my confession: I don’t think I liked this novel very much. For starters, I am not a huge fan of YA books in general. I appreciate them in a lot of ways, and I own plenty and supply them to my teenagers readily. So mostly it’s a matter of me not choosing to read them much.

And this book is perfectly good. It’s readable, it’s charming, it’s smart; but I also think it’s ham-fisted at times and manipulative throughout. Given that it leans on the concept of “Cancer Perks” throughout, ie the little extra things that kids with Cancer get because they have Cancer (which are totally fair obviously), but the book also tries to have some of these. So for example, the jokes about diseases (especially ableism). I think it does happen to show that John Green is good at creating characters and forcing you, the reader, to reckon with who they are rather than who you want them to be (Augustus at times, Peter van Houten for sure). I often find that readers don’t seem to know what fiction is.

Anyway.

I am fine with the book being peopled by kids who are super precocious and who are readers and use big words.

I absolutely do not trust Augustus at all. I feel like he was always gonna go for the dying girl and kind of let that be his thing. The best thing his character did for himself was die. Anyway.

(Photo: https://www.ted.com/speakers/john_green)