Resistance

I didn’t think there was a pretentious way to state your age until I read The Fault in Our Stars

Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.

Here we go. I know I mentioned it before, but, “my seventeenth year”, and “presumably”? I don’t think most teenagers talk like this. At least, I don’t, unless I’m trying to show off my stellar vocabulary skills be pretentious.

And all this stuff about her mother “deciding” she was depressed. I mean, sometimes I like to spend a day in bed and read. There are some days I don’t eat much, and sometimes before I go to bed, I wonder what it’ll be like to be dead. But I’m pretty sure if I did all those things all the time every day, and I had cancer, it would be a reasonable assumption that I, may, in fact, be fucking depressed. I don’t think that I’d be particularly outraged if my parent/guardian decided that it might be time to get some help.

Hazel talks about how depression isn’t a side effect of cancer, it’s a side effect of dying, okay, semantics, but I get what she’s going for. And then:

Cancer is a side effect of dying. Almost everything is, really.

Um, what? I think you mean dying is a side effect of cancer. Cancer is the cause and dying is the effect, not the other way around. That’s like saying “having a cold is a side effect of sneezing and coughing”. Maybe she means that the end result of life is death, and therefore anything that happens in life is a side effect of dying. But that still doesn’t make sense. Death itself is a “side-effect” of living; and therefore anything that happens in life is a side effect of living.

Anyway. Hazel’s mother takes her to “Regular Doctor Jim” (why is “regular” capitalized, please?) Doctor Jim decides that Hazel is “veritably” depressed and needs to attend a “Support Group”. And what do you know, Hazel whines. The support group is depressing, it’s in a church shaped like a cross (apparently they’re where Jesus’ heart would have been), and Patrick is the “Leader”. Also he sucks and the lemonade and cookies he have suck and he had cancer and his cancer story sucks and he has no friends and no balls (literally and figuratively) and he sucks.

She explains how they introduce themselves, name, age, diagnosis etc. It’s weird because she says she’s called Hazel, is 16, and has thyroid cancer that moved to her lungs. But what I don’t get is that her mother introduced her to the support group in her “17th year”, so, unless she turned back time, or wanted to lie about her age, why would she say she was 16? Unless I’m missing something. If I am, please tell me. I probably wouldn’t have even noticed this if it wasn’t for that pretentious opening line.

She talks about her support group some more, and how Patrick sucks but he lets them talk about dying. But not too many people are dying so it doesn’t matter. Ergo he still sucks. And . . .

Like, I realize that this is irrational, but when they tell you that you have, say, a 20% chance of living five years, the math kicks in and you figure that’s one in five . . . so you look around and think, as any healthy person would: I gotta outlast four of these bastards.

First, the “like” and the “gotta”. Either you pick “I have a big vocabulary and talk a little strange” or you pick “teenager with teenager words”, John. You can’t have it both ways. Second, that’s not how probability works, Hazel, and I learned that in my first year in high-school. Just because you live longer than four people, that doesn’t mean that you’re any more likely not to die. So I’m not sure how you’re thinking here, but it’s definitely not right.

Whatever. The next person we’re introduced to is Isaac. He turns out to be an okay character, or so I’ve heard. I’m praying. Apparently he has eye cancer and he’s wicked skinny and has blond hair. He has one real eye and one fake eye that is “preternaturally” huge.

You know, I like to read, I like to write, I have sufficient vocabulary in my opinion. But I have no idea what “preternaturally” means. (It means exceeding what is natural, according to Google). Weird word choice aside, Hazel explains that she and Isaac have a very special relationship, wherein they communicate exclusively through sighs and microscopic head shakes. Good thing Hazel told us this because I’m hard of hearing and not the best at preparing slides. Hazel sums up her support group as “it blew” and basically hates it. As if I couldn’t already tell. What follows next is pretty quote-heavy, so hold on.

For some reason, John decides to go with a script-type format for this next section of dialogue between Hazel and her mom. I don’t really have much against it, but it’s definitely weird. It starts off with Hazel refusing to go to support group and her mom telling she has to go. Interesting. Then:

Me: “Please just let me watch America’s Next Top Model. It’s an activity.”

I will shamefully admit, I went through a phase when I was younger when I was quite like Hazel. It lasted only a few months, thankfully, but I remember trying to sound smart and using words like “preternaturally” and “presumably” and being “better” than everyone else. I also remember hating reality TV because I thought it was stupid. Though I’m out of that phase, and still think it’s a little silly, I’ll still sit down and watch Dance Moms or America’s Next Top Model for an hour of TV I don’t have to think about too much.

What I don’t get is John trying to make Hazel both a normal teenager and one that is special and different. I guess he wants to make her relatable, but it’s weird as hell alternating between “like, whatever, reality TV pwns all” and “preternaturally, presumably, I walked down the long, winding path of concrete”. It seems like John can’t make up his mind about what Hazel should be. It would be interesting to see Hazel go from being pretentious and then realizing that she really doesn’t matter and becoming more down-to-earth, rather than trying to balance out her “insightfulness” by having her watch reality TV and say “like”.
Anyway. Hazel’s mom says that TV is a “passivity”, and Hazel groans.

Mom: “Hazel, you’re a teenager. You’re not a little kid anymore. You need to make friends, get out of the house, and live your life.”

She has a point. So far, Hazel is pretty boring, her only defining traits being that she hates everything, watches ANTM, and has cancer. This would be fine, if John were going to change Hazel into someone who experiences life after realizing that her time is limited, but he doesn’t.

Me: “If you want me to be a teenager, don’t send me to Support Group. Buy me a fake ID so I can go to clubs, drink vodka, and take pot.”
Mom: “You don’t take pot, for starters.”

I think this is supposed to be funny, but it really just sounds like Hazel is a sheltered senior citizen and her mom is some weird hippy spouting off about how you smoke “pot” and “TV is a passivity”

Mom: “You’re going to Support Group.”
Me: “UGGGGGGGGGGGGG.”

Yes, 13 capital Gs. I counted, just for you. Anyway, Hazel goes to her support group because she wants to make her parents happy. She mentions again that she’s 16, which I’m still confused about. I Googled it, and apparently it’s because she’s “experiencing her 17th year”? Because the time between you’re 0 and 1, you’re experiencing your first year, and so on.

Me: UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

Hazel gets to the church and pretends to fiddle around with her oxygen tank to kill time, and tells us how she doesn’t take the elevator because that’s a “Last Days” activity. I’m pretty sure unnecessary capitalization was also a last days activity, but I’d have to consult my Bible to be confident. Anway . . . Hazel gets a cookie and then there’s a guy there. And . . . description time!

Long and leanly muscular, he dwarfed the molded plastic elementary school chair he was sitting in.

He’s muscular, but not that muscular! Also he’s long, which I think means tall. And “molded plastic elementary school chair”. Really? Really? Say that five times fast. The unnecessary adjectives. “Molded” – because we weren’t smart enough to know the plastic isn’t liquid. “Elementary” kind of serves a purpose, but so would “tiny” or “little”, which would also get rid of “school”. So instead of “the little plastic chair” it’s “the molded plastic elementary school chair”. Okay.

Mahogany hair, straight and short. He looked my age, maybe a year older, and he sat with his tailbone against the edge of the chair, his posture aggressively poor, one hand half in a pocket of dark jeans.

So basically, besides his “aggressively poor posture” (which I imagine to mean he’s folded in half like a piece of paper), he’s perfect. And he’s staring at Hazel. And now it’s time to list why Hazel is oh-so-plain, also known as her “myriad inefficiencies”, which include: her hair, her puffy cheeks, her “cankle situation”, her jeans, her shirt, blah, blah, blah. Some boring description about checking the time and sitting down. Like three paragraphs of it. Then . . .

A nonhot boy stares at you relentlessly and it is, at best, awkward and, at worst, a form of assault. But a hot boy . . . well.

So someone who you don’t find attractive staring at you is assault, but someone you do find attractive staring at you is heaven. Ooookay.

Hazel decides that girls can stare too (though with her “myriad inefficiencies”, and Hazel’s staring thesis, one would hope that Hazel is not committing the heinous crime of assault). Boys don’t have a monopoly on the Staring Business (capitalization Green’s, not mine), she cries. Boring talking about the hot boy’s eyes.

The support group starts. Isaac talks about how it’s going to suck being blind, but his friend Augustus and his girlfriend help. Then some other people talk about how cancer sucks and Hazel thinks a girl talking about how she feels strong is being arrogant. Because she’s hot. Awh, poor Hazel. Then little Augustus gets to go.

His voice was low, smoky, and dead sexy.

Of course it was. Augustus feels “grand” and is on a “roller coaster that only goes up”. Funny how Hazel doesn’t think he’s being arrogant. Because he’s hot. The support group continues on and is recapped so pretentiously, it begs to be quoted.

The hour proceeded apace: Fights were recounted, battles won amid wars sure to be lost; hope was clung to; families were both celebrated and denounced; it was agreed that friends just didn’t get it; tears were shed; comfort proffered.

Is it just me or does Hazel sound like she’s recapping her stupid support group like it’s The Odyssey?

The Augustus is asked to share his fears with the group. His fear is “oblivion”. He fears it

like the proverbial blind man who’s afraid of the dark

Isaac is offended and Augustus says that he’s insensitive to other people’s feelings. How/why the hell is he helping/being friends with a kid who’s going blind? Patrick is confused by what oblivion means and asks for clarification. Hazel raises her hand. What follows next is maybe one of the most pretentious parts of the book.

Hazel says oblivion means that there’s going to be a time when we’re all dead, and the human race won’t exist any more, and no one will remember anything that happened. That it’s inevitable but God knows what happens to everyone. (This is a shorter summation of what takes up about two book pages). She notes that she learned this from Peter Van Houten, and his book An Imperial Affliction. She also notes that Peter Van Houten is the best person who ever lived.

I think the fear of oblivion is interesting, and I won’t get into my thoughts about it, but it’s a little out of place for Augustus to say this in support group. I mean, I don’t like “oblivion” any more than the next person, but it’s weird if I were to say that in a room full of people I barely know. Especially since it demands like a 30 minute monologue. But really none of that matters because it’s just a way for John Green to show how cool and smart his two main characters are.

Augustus complements Hazel by saying she’s “something else”, which I would agree she is, but maybe not with the positive connotation. Then Patrick prays. It’s a long list of names. Hazel tells us it’s a long list of names. Then Hazel whines about how Support Group sucks. Augustus asks Hazel her full name [!] and she tells him it: Hazel Grace Lancaster. Cool. Then Isaac tells a stupid story about how he’d rather be deaf than blind, and his doctor telling him that that’s not how it works.

Augustus and Hazel banter and it’s stupid and boring and about how they’re in Jesus’ heart and how Hazel looks like Natalie Portman from V for Vendetta. Cool. Augustus tells Hazel she’s pretty, and instead of saying “thanks”, she says she’s not pretty.

Then, this . . .

“You should see it,” he said. “V for Vendetta, I mean.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll look it up.”
“No. With me. At my house,” he said. “Now”

Now that’s not creepy at all, is it? Hazel points out that she barely knows him, and he could be a murderer, but then she sees how hot he is and obliges. Then they see Isaac and his girlfriend making out and saying “always”, which isn’t their safe word, but rather their way of saying they’ll love each other always. Hazel notices that Isaac is feeling his girlfriend up, but forgives him. Umm, why is she forgiving him? It’s not like the girl is struggling against Isaac, they’re making out and obviously are in a relationship. Augustus and Hazel make a crack about Isaac’s hands and where they are (his girlfriend’s boobs).

Augustus takes out a cigarette and puts it in his mouth, and Hazel freaks out, saying he’s ruined the whole thing. What whole thing?

The whole thing where a boy who is not unattractive or unintelligent or seemingly in any way unacceptable stares at me and points out incorrect uses of literality and compares me to actresses and asks me to watch a movie at his house. But of course there is always a harmartia and yours [is that you’re going to smoke even though you had cancer].

“Unacceptable” – yeah, ‘cause it’s not like he demanded you watch a movie at his house but barely even knows you. Also, who the hell talks like this? Who the hell says “harmartia”? Hazel exposits this means means “fatal flaw”, though I would think that’d be Augustus’ pretentiousness. Who the hell breaks out into a monologue? Why not just say, “because you just had cancer, and you’re smoking cancer sticks, you dumbfuck?” Oh, right, because Hazel is too smart to say stuff like a normal teenager would.

Augustus says it’s a metaphor and he’s never lit one. First, how does he buy them? He’s seventeen, and you can legally only buy tobacco at eighteen. It’s not like you can just walk into the store and say, “oh don’t worry, I’m not going to smoke these, it’s just a metaphor.” Maybe he got his hands on just one pack, but that’s got to be gross putting the same fourteen cigarettes in your mouth for a year.

How is it a metaphor, though, you ask? Because he’s putting the thing that kills him between his teeth, but doesn’t allow it to have its killing power (the smoke). Which is technically wrong, because it’s the cancer that will kill him, but the cigarette that will cause the cancer. But, whatever. Maybe for a more effective metaphor, he should carry around a dagger and put that in his mouth, but not make any stabby motions with it.

Hazel is so enamored with Augustus’ speciality that she hops in his car, tells her mom to record ANTM for her, and rides off into the sunlight.

Aw . . .

Up next time, more unneeded capitalization, a movie, and you guessed it, people being pretentious.

Like the last line of V for Vendetta “Are you hurt [yet]?”

Comment [30]

A lot of people say they’re writers. People like Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, and even some people on this here site, what’s it called again? Imping Ideas or something? It doesn’t matter. The fact is that they’re not. And I’ll prove it to you.

In my opinion, you can pretty much only call yourself a writer once you’ve written a book that’s in a popular genre – for example YA Paranormal Romance. Real writers like Stephenie Meyer, P.C. Cast, Kristin Cast, and Becca Fitzpatrick come to mind. Besides, who even likes books that aren’t YA Paranormal Romance? I don’t want to read about wizard people and elves and whatever. Where’s the hot guys? I mean, really, guys, who wants to read a book that doesn’t have any hot guys?

But you know what, it doesn’t really matter. There are eight things that make you a writer. And in this article series, I am going to cover them all. If you meet these eight characteristics, congratulations: you’re a writer! If you don’t, then you seriously need to think about getting a new profession.

Social Withdrawal

As a writer, you probably don’t have many friends. Unless you count characters as friends. You spend most of your day hunched over a keyboard/piece of paper/typewriter/scraps of cloth you found because you couldn’t afford paper. When you’re not working on your next masterpiece, you’re too busy thinking about working on it to be able to talk to anyone anyways. If you had friends before you became a writer, they’re probably to busy fangirling over the next fanfiction-made-book-made-movie phenomena to talk to you, which doesn’t matter, anyway because you’re too busy pounding away at that keyboard/scribbling notes/tattooing the rest of your story behind your ear.

Since becoming a writer, you probably have recessed into your Writing Spot, which is customized to your exact liking. For most writers, it’s a public place, like Starbucks, where all the interesting people go, and also where you’re most likely to get asked ‘can you please move?’ so you can reply ‘I’m a writer,’ with that air of confidence writing gives you. If you’re boring and don’t have your driver’s license, your Writing Spot is probably somewhere quirky like the tree house you built (sort of) or the northernmost corner of your basement. If you’re one of those really boring people who don’t like lugging their thirty pound bag of writing accoutrements out to a cardboard box in the front bushes, your Writing Spot is most likely in your room, and if you have no imagination at all, it might even be a desk.

When you’re in your Writing Spot, you should make sure to hang one of those ‘Do Not Disturb’ hangers that you stole from the hotel and appropriately decorate it with a tasteful assortment of glitter glue, stickers, and decorative plastic gems. Place it on the door handle/on the twig next to your box/on your face. If someone does disturb you while you have this sign hung up, they must be lectured on how you are writing a Masterpiece, and that disturbing you disturbs your Muse, which in turn upsets the natural flow of your words that come hand-picked from deep within the bowels of the universe. If said disturber does not agree, you do have the legal right to slam the door in their face/slap them with a branch/throw moldy socks at them, or any combination of the above.

You must go to great lengths to get to your Writing Spot, or to even write. On vacation? You’re writing in the car, at mealtimes, in the hotel room, at the pool, in the bathroom. It’s a good idea to fake diarrhea while on vacation so you can stay cooped up in the bathroom and write while your family wants to go to places that wouldn’t allow you to write – a water park, for instance. What fun is that anyway?

When your peers ask you to do things with them, you should refuse, preferably by saying “I’m writing today. It’s a very important chapter,” or something to that merit. Even if it’s something important, you must refuse the temptation. You didn’t even know Jessica that well. Plus, going to her funeral will probably just put you in a bad mood. And that’s not good for your writing, especially the part where you have to talk to people. And that’s what being a writer is all about, refusing to interact with any human beings – especially when they ask to see your work. This can only lead to disaster. If anyone looks at what you’re doing, or asks to see what you’re doing, you should kick them, preferably somewhere that will leave an everlasting scar.

Your family and friends [?] and that cousin from Australia might have noticed your social withdrawal. They may talk about it at teatime, or communal bath time. Maybe or when you’re absent from dinner because you’re writing the kiss scene in your poem, you may hear fragments of their conversation as they eat. “What the hell is she doing in there?” your mother will ask. “I’m worried,” your father will comment. “Pass the bread,” Aunt Liza will say, frowning. Your little sister will start sighing and rolling her eyes and then your father will start telling that joke he told last week and you’ll be back to writing The Crimson Blood Red Moon Howl, which is more important than food anyway. I mean, it’s pretty much Destined to win all of those prizes that you can win for being amazing at poetry. There’s one, like, the Pull-tizer. Right?

At school the teachers probably scold you for being absent minded, which you should just shrug off. Little do they know you’re working on angsty poetry about a forbidden love between a werewolf and his human lover, which got an A when you gave it to your teacher. And even littler do they know that the Crazy Eight Ball you keep by your bed told you that you would ‘most definitely’ write a book that would sell millions.

If you don’t go to school, because that’s not ‘in’ anymore, the police/the Starbucks employees are always telling you to get out of Starbucks because it’s closing now, thank you very much, and shouldn’t you be in school?

Alternately, if you are working, your boss will have started criticizing you for slacking off and for finding multiple pages of Yahoo!Answers on how to write in your browser history. You should promise to pick up the pace. You can’t lose this job, because if you do, you won’t be able to buy the coffees that allow you to sit at Starbucks until they close, continually tapping people on the shoulder to tell them that ‘you’re a writer’, because no one else will ask you what you’re doing if you don’t.

Even though you probably don’t have friends, you do make an effort to have a love life, which consists of the sexy bad boys novel and that grungy middle school boy in your math class/your on-again-off-again-one-night-stand-turned-kinda-boyfriend/your husband, sort-of. You’re not happy with this state of affairs. Your husband/kind of boyfriend/school crush may make a mean omelet/buy you flowers/help you with homework, but he sure as hell can’t sparkle, nor can he shape-shift into a fairy. If you’re not happy (you’re not) with how your non-platonic relationships are going, just remember: wishing hard enough creates a chemical reaction in the brain which can fire certain firing things in the fibers of your mind, which can in turn make your love interest come true and fall in love with you in real life. That, or you can take LSD and see how it all turns out. (You may need to work overtime to keep up with the addiction though, so it’s not recommended).

Does this sound like you? Yes? Good. You can proudly say that you have passed phase one of being a writer. If this doesn’t sound like you, then you obviously need to do something to change that. Or maybe you can become a pastry chef. (You should always have a Plan B, you know). My suggestions to those that want to be writers? Read this until your eyeballs bleed (i.e. do what I say without question).

Comment [5]

Because you’re a writer, you probably don’t know what that word means. It’s not like writers have small vocabularies, it’s just that you probably can’t find the word ‘depersonalization’ in your copy of Merriam Webster’s Thesaurus. Besides, you’re probably too tired from reading all that Harry/Draco fanfiction to look it up in the dictionary. If you’re not, here it is anyways – “a sense of being unreal, hazy, and in a dreamlike state, sometimes accompanied by intense anxiety.”

Being ‘depersonalized’, or as doctors like to say ‘out of your mind’, is probably a common experience for you. Why wouldn’t it be? When you’re writing, you’re not actually lucid. You just think up the ideas and then your muse does the rest. Your muse is pretty much what writes the, um, stuff, you write. Your muse is the best. He does all the work for you.

Your muse should be of the sex that you lust after, but if you’re a YA Paranormal Romance writer it’s almost guaranteed that you’re a ‘mature’ straight lady, so your muse should be a flawless, Greek-god man, customized to your liking. Of course, it doesn’t have to be a guy, or even a human, but who wouldn’t want the person/thing they talk to while writing to be their lust object too?

If you don’t have a muse yet, it’s easy to get one. While they do sell kits online, and even though most of those ads are reliable, do you really want to pay a thousand dollars for a muse when you can create your own? No. So what you do is create one. Muses in their raw form aren’t really anything until you decide to sculpt them. Sort of like modeling clay. Yes. Picture your muse sitting in the back of your heart (the Egyptians were right, the heart does do all the thinking), a big lump of grey clay. Now picture yourself sculpting that clay, making the most original thing possible. Just pick one of the predetermined features from each category.

Hair

1. Sensuous silky raven locks that pool around his head like dark sensual chocolate desire.
2. Tawny gold hair that glints like a sensual gilded halo around his face in the morning sun, complementing his flawless face and glimmering eyes.
3. Rich red flames that flicker around his ears, adding to his fiery sensual personality.
4. A cascade of chocolate that adds to the sexiness of his signature smirk, deep brown and sensual.

Eyes

1. Glassy green orbs, the color of freshly mowed grass mixed with antifreeze, highlighted with specks of sexy deep brown.
2. Black sexy pools of ebony depths, like the fresh paint of a Harley Davidson.
3. Sexy liquid chocolate, with flecks of caramel, like a Cadbury chocolate bar.
4. Crystal blue, strikingly azure with hints of white sexy sea-foam on the right side of each iris.

Skin

1. Pale, sensual ivory white like dew drops that shine in the morning heat.
2. Richly tan, the color of coffee and milk, hot and sensual.
3. Black. Sensual.

Lips

1. Soft, creamy, dreamy heavenly delight, the picture of perfection.
2. Perfect pink, like a toe-dancer’s shoes.
3. Luscious, sensual, sexy and inviting, like the snake in the Garden of Eden. (Bonus points for Biblical references).

Personality

1. Hot, sexy bad boy.
2. Sweet, hot guy next door.
3. Really well dressed hot guy.
4. Exotic.

Okay, have you picked your muse’s characteristics? Good. Now it’s time to name your muse. Name him something sexy and sensual, like his eyes/hair/skin/lips. Or something you’d name a hamster, like Patch(es). That should do the trick. Got your muse’s name, looks, and personality? Now it’s time to start exploiting, I mean, using your muse.

Your muse should be your inspiration, thoughts, and writing. Well, some of the thoughts have to be yours, because otherwise you’d have to publish your work under your muse’s name. Ever wonder why authors publish under pseudonyms? Their muse was mad that they didn’t get any credit and forced the book to be published under their name.

You don’t want your muse to become violent, so you should care for it properly. You should feed it a daily ration of three slash fics a day, keep its cell fresh, and bring new sheets on Mondays. Your muse’s cell/habitat should be pretty big. You should probably dedicate a whole room to your muse. Paint the walls the color of his eyes, but instead of using regular paint, buy a bunch of those nail polishes with the glitter inside. This may seem like a waste of money, but studies have shown that ninety-eight percent of muses do better in a room that sparkles. Besides a bed (cherry wood is best), you should keep some whips and chains in your muse’s cell, properly secured. This is for when your muse is not supplying you with fresh ideas. These instruments should only be used in extreme cases, such as when your agent needs the manuscript of the sequel tomorrow and you’ve only written the first chapter. If you don’t feel comfortable whipping your muse, you can just copy and paste some of your or others’ fanfiction and change the names to your characters’ names. If you can’t find a fanfiction that fits, you can have an illegal alien you know write your book, in exchange for keeping their secret. As mentioned before, whipping your muse is only recommended for dire situations, so the latter two ideas are the best.

You should also buy your muse fancy clothes to wear. Some people may say this is ridiculous, but keep in mind that you’re the only one that can see/touch/taste/smell/hear your muse. And who doesn’t like fancy clothes? Since your muse probably looks about seventeen, like your protagonist’s love interest, you should buy him hip and trendy clothes from all the groovy stores the young’uns go to. If you can afford it, and if your muse’s personality is really well-dressed, then you should opt for stores like Gucci, Fendi, and Prada. If your muse’s personality is sexy bad boy, buy lots of black clothes from Hot Topic and/or Ambercrombie and Fitch. If your muse’s personality is sweet guy next door, then you should also go with Ambercrombie and Fitch. Ambercrombie and Fitch is a great store. If your muse’s personality is exotic, then you should buy him clothes from Abercrombie and Fitch. It’s a fucking great store. The clothing you buy for your muse must match his personality, because studies have shown that you can tell someone’s personality from what they wear. Your muse should most definitely not buy anything from Nordstrom’s, because then his personality would be ‘poor’.

You should spoon-feed and sponge-bathe your muse. Not only will this give you excuses for alone time with your muse, but it will allow you to develop a deeper bond with your muse (from which love may blossom!). Buy him expensive shampoo, conditioner, and body gel, and stock up on Old Spice products, because only hot men are allowed to use Old Spice.

You should talk with your muse on an hourly basis, even if you’re around other people. Put in a Bluetooth earpiece and pretend you’re talking to your editor. (P.S. – don’t actually hire an editor). In talking to your muse, you will discover all sorts of new things, like how to make your male love interest more of a loveable piece of shit, more ways to describe his physical features, and how to tell and not show (your English teacher was wrong). You will find yourself falling in love with your muse.

Sexual relations with you muse can be a bit of a sticky subject. Doctors agree that it’s not per se, “healthy” to fornicate with a being no one else but yourself can see, but as YA Paranormal Romance authors will all tell you, it’s perfectly fine. And you can’t get pregnant, so that’s pretty great too. Plus when you’re with your muse, you’re not technically you. Actually, you’re made of the same stuff that your muse is made of, that sculpt able heart/brain matter stuff. So you can recreate yourself when you’re with your muse. Some boring people like to be their regular self around their muse, but most will agree that it’s better to have dazzling eyes, flowing locks, flawless skin, a heart-shaped face, and curves in all the right places.

Don’t tell anyone about your muse. Many people will probably want to steal him, and that’s not good because your muse supplies you with only the freshest possible ideas on the market. Although if someone does try to steal your muse, it might cover up the fact that you stole/were inspired by that fanfiction you wrote about Harry Potter/Twilight/Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Where should you work with your muse? Somewhere non-conformists go, like a cemetery, or an abandoned house. If you don’t fancy that idea, take it down a notch and go to Chipotle or Starbucks. Or Starbucks. With all those things people say about Starbucks and writing online because they think it’s funny, it must be a good place.

You should always come impeccably dressed for work (outside the Muse Cage Container). I suggest wearing something perfect, because if your muse is anything like your designated love interest, he doesn’t love people that aren’t perfect and/or spineless. That’s another tip. You should listen to whatever your muse says. Don’t feel comfortable making those two “parabatai”, but your muse says you should? Do it. Don’t want the love interest to want to kill the main character? Your muse knows better. Here’s a sample of the documentary I’m writing about muses.

[Slowly fade in to a beautiful woman, tapping her pen against her flawless chin. There’s a stack of paper in front of her, along with a computer, which just so happens to be the one Stephenie Meyer let her borrow . . . She’s listening to some totally non-mainstream Writing Music, while drinking a latte, not noticing the annoyed girl behind the counter of the Starbucks, who has been watching this woman talk to herself from six to nine in the evening for the past month . . .]

BEAUTIFUL WOMAN: Hey, um, M’USE, I just got my coffee and, so, I’d like some, um, help with this chapter. So, Traffy a.k.a. Trafalgar, the female lead, has just had a totally epic dream and she realizes that she now has some new powers, and also her baby brother is locked up, but her boyfriend has been looking at Evilla DeMean, the slutty cheerleader, who is a demon in disguise . . .

MALCOLM’UPANISHAD SAUL ERATO: Just listen to me.

BW: Tell me, o muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy.

M’USE: Let me ooze into the exposed cracks of your diminutive intelligence, and the language will gush without restraint; my knowledge will plug you and the prose that results will be published, without need for editing.

BW: Great!

[Swirls of majestic color dance like over-excited trees in the cool summer sun as the M’USE and the Beautiful Woman trade brains. The only thing noticeably different about the BW is the fact that her eyes have changed from lovely pools of azure and crystalline blue to orbs of crimson red. But she is writing, hands tapping on the keyboard so fast that it almost breaks . . . Three hours later, the book is finished.]

Now, you young’uns without the muse bond I have with Malcolm will probably not be able to finish your book in three days. It may take you a few months, but don’t despair! The more time you spend with your muse the better you can get at writing.

Take this sentence for example: “Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home.” That ugly, shameful sentence can be “translated” into much more beautiful words with the simple help of a thesaurus and your muse. Ta-da! “Voluminous metropolises did he stopover, and various were the nation-states with whose comportments and customs he was conversant; moreover he felt pain much by briny depths while trying to protect his own life cycle and convey his kinsmen out of harm’s way family.” That’s much better. It’s a good idea while editing to just listen to your muse and his handy thesaurus. You know what they say, “a word a day keeps the critics away”.

Muses can also help you with things like plot, characters, and style. Since they are, by nature, imagination, you don’t really have to do any of the work. It’s almost like a demonic possession, except instead of a demon, you have a sexy bad boy/hot guy next door/sexy well-dressed guy inhabiting your body.

When pitching your novel to an agent, tell them nothing about your muse. If they think your work is good (most of them will send rejections, but they’re pretty much just jealous), they may try and kidnap your muse. If they’re jealous and think it’s bad, they may try to kill your muse, both of which can be detrimental to yourself.

The last thing I want you to do before you shut off your computer is take out a piece of paper. And a pen or writing utensil of your choice. At the top of said paper, write “Things I Need to Be a Writer”. Then underneath that, write “Muse”. Now check off muse. Have you checked off muse? Yes? Good, you’ve passed step two of becoming a writer. Have you not checked off muse? Then I suggest you start working on it.

Comment [9]

So you’ve got a muse, and properly cut yourself off from the world. Good. Now it’s really time to start cracking. You’re probably going to notice as you start writing that some strange things are going to happen. It’s perfectly okay. You’ve just got to stick with it until your novel is done. Comprende? Good.

One of the first things you’re going to notice is that you’re going to start becoming disgusting. Really disgusting. Not like bad hair day disgusting, old bag lady disgusting. My doctor described it as having a “lack of personal hygiene.” Or something like that. As you start getting deeper and deeper into the “flesh” of your writing, shall we say, you’re going to notice that you are probably going to become more and more horrendously dirty. Now, writing is a hard task. You don’t have time to wash, shower, or bathe, no matter how quick it is. Your hair is probably going to become limp and greasy, and stringy, like a methed out punk rocker. Your skin should start turning an off yellow color. And after about thirty days of novelling, you should start to carry around the faint aroma of rotten eggs and dried cow lips. You should bottle it. Someone on Craigslist will probably buy it.

This is all okay! Since you’ve already withdrawn from normal human behavior, like interaction with sentient beings, no one is going to notice. And even if they do, they’ll probably just label you “eccentric.” Being labeled eccentric is like winning the lottery. Not that you would know what that feels like, but you’ve got to trust me on this. People love eccentrics. They smell weird and wear funny hats. And since people love eccentrics, you should probably try to become one.

How, you ask, is this accomplished? There are many different routes you can take, because there are many different types of eccentrics. There are the ones that are depressed, the special ones, and homeless people. Whatever sort of eccentric you chose to be, remember, smell is the most important aspect, and all eccentrics have the same smell.

The Depressed Eccentric

The depressed eccentric (or DE, for short) likes to be sad. They gaze out windows. They blog about their life on Tumblr. They may or may not have a proclivity towards eyeliner. They like to angst. Angsting is very important, and consists of three major principles: being anti-social (which hopefully you already are), crying (you should be able to attain this enlighted state of mind by reading your own writing – your prose is more than enough to bring one to tears), and whining. Whining doesn’t take much effort, but it is one of the most important parts of being angsty. But how does one whine?

First, pick something in your life. It doesn’t necessarily have to be bad, like not having food to eat, or living in a cardboard box. It can be something like having to interact with people. Maybe your parents think you need to get out of the house a bit more. Of course, this is ridiculous, and you probably already just ignore them, but you need to whine about it too. This really emphasizes your struggle. You should practice. Here are some things to whine about: going to school, not being able to go to school, people constantly talking to you, having no people to talk to, friends, enemies, teachers, clothes, boys, girls, love, a lack of love, how you’ll never find someone to love, how you have someone to love but don’t like them, how you have someone to love but you love someone else, when your crush looks at you, when your crush won’t look at you, when you’re alive, when you’re almost alive, when you’re almost dead, and finally, when you’re dead. These are just a few things you can whine about, and being the genius that you are, I’m sure you can find more.

The Special Eccentric

The Special Eccentric, is as you would probably guess, special. They gaze out windows. They blog about their life on Tumblr, and of course, they angst. Not as much as a DE, but enough to be able to educate the people around them that being a novelist is hard. Like really hard. Special Eccentrics also have a proclivity towards using big words rather than eyeliner. If you don’t know a lot of big words, don’t despair. You can just make some up! Or you can try reading the dictionary. If all else fails, you can ask your muse to beat you daily with a thesaurus. Though this may cause some blunt head trauma, it will also increase your vocabulary.

People think it’s especially eccentric when you use words wrong without knowing it. How does one do this? It’s simple. Just take a sentence, such as “While doodling and singing, I walked down the street towards my house,” and insert some random words into it, or take some normal words out and insert new, big ones. This is what the final product should look like. “While practicing circumlocution on my bicycle and gasconading, I effectuated throughout the avenue imprudently going forward to the place I usually reside: algerining because I was hungry, cancatervating the my brain matter.” Much better, eh?

The SE also likes to do quirky things, like using a litter box instead of a toilet, or graphing the growth of their finger nails/hair on a daily basis. They also like making their own groups. If you’re too busy to create your own Special Eccentric group (a.k.a “1950’s Era Photography Club with Knitting Poodle Skirts and Some Community Service on the Side,” or maybe “Gardening Club that Likes to Knit and Also Likes Cartography and the Study of Flags, Which Was Mentioned on the Radio Once but We Forget What it’s Called”), you can join one. Look for the aforementioned names.

SEs are also quirky people. For example, here is a biography of an SE.

Preferred pronous: buns/bun/bunself or nuns/nun/nunself. A-romantic, otherkin, transethnic, keyboard dysmorphia (srry 4 eny spelling mistaks ok?), blue-orange-is-the-new-black morality, I’m an atheist ‘cause I’m really mad at god right now, but that might change. I also identify as a reptilian from time to time, and my preferred pronouns are: lizardz/lizard/lizirdddself

SEs also like to do drugs, but not because they were looped into doing them by a shady dealer, or were kicked out of a foster home and turned to the streets. No, SEs do drugs because drugs are interesting, and they are interesting, and therefore, they do interesting things. Marijuana and alcohol are off the list, because they’re too common and too inexpensive. An SE should strive to smoke opium from an authentic 1800s opium pipe in an authentic 1800s opium-smoking den. If that fails, try meth. It’ll give you a nice disgusting smell, which if you remember, is what all eccentrics need to smell like.

Homeless People

Homeless people are eccentrics, believe it or not. If you’re not already living in squalor, please do so now. Being homeless is the eccentric position to have, and one of the most coveted. There are many different types of homeless people, but you should strive to be each one at least once, to be fair. Some types of homeless people: hungry homeless people, thirsty homeless people, and dead homeless people. Try and give each group equal attention.

See you next time!

Actually, no, wait! Wait! WAIT! Remember that paper that we titled “Things I Need to Be a Writer”? It was a little while ago, so if you’ve gotten amnesia since then, I understand. Please try and find it. When you’ve found it, bring it to your computer with a pencil (or other auxilliary writing utensil). Under the title, there should be the word “muse.” I hope you’ve had time to make one of those since last time. If muse is checked off, write underneath it, “a stench and an eccentric personality” and get cracking.

Ta ta for now!

Comment [6]

Before reading Columbus: His Enterprise – Exploding the Myth I had to write two things I knew about Columbus. These were:

1. That he was a dick to Native Americans and
2. He thought he went to India.

Likewise, before reading (and sporking) The Fault in Our Stars, I shall write two things I know about John Green.

1. He is on Tumblr and there’s some drama with that or something
2. Almost everyone in the world (seriously) loves him and his book.

It’s hard to talk to someone nowadays who hasn’t read, watched, or heard of The Fault in Our Stars. At first, it was a few of my acquaintances, then some of my friends, then all my friends, then all the internet. To put it simply, The Fault in Our Stars has exploded. All of my friends were suddenly recommending me this book. I was apprehensive. Like always, I had checked out the reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. Usually a book that’s bad reviews consist of “had 2 red 4 skool and it waz boring cause i didnt lik it” or “I didn’t like when Matt died because I liked him” mean that the book was generally good. The bad reviews of The Fault in Our Stars seemed to have a lot of legitimate points. Still, my friends encouraged me, and I began to read. I did not like what I read. The dislike, along with the undeserved hyper-popularity of the series and claims of significance and depth, have led to this spork.

You’re welcome.

A lot of people like to start with the dedications, but I will start with the front flap. The front flap gives a short description of the story, a girl named Hazel has terminal cancer, then some guy called Augustus shows up and it “rewrites her story”, which is an interesting observation by whoever wrote this blurb, because as we see, Hazel ends up being a very passive character. It isn’t Hazel who rewrites her story, it’s someone else, who’s a dick, at that. Probably a coincidence, but still. Some verbs about the book and describing how great John Green is, and we’re at the dedication. Apparently it’s to Esther Earl, who I think was a friend that John knew who died of cancer, which is nice.

After the dedication, there’s a quote from An Imperial Affliction, which kind of sounds like a post-modern remake of The Emperor’s New Clothes. It features a capitalized Dutch Tulip Man, who I imagine to be a man with a tulip for a head. He says

Conjoiner rejoinder poisoner concealer revelator.

Apparently he’s talking about the ocean/water, but I’m not sure why he chose these adjectives. I can see how the ocean is a concealer, as in dead bodies. But none of those other verbs make sense to me. Conjoiner? How does the ocean bring things together. I mean, maybe, like water on sand or something, but even that’s a stretch. Rejoinder? I highly doubt he’s using it in the legal sense, but rather to mean “an answer to a to a reply”. Even I can’t come up with a bullshit ocean correlation for that. The ocean has never talked to me, and if it’s talking to this guy it’s because he’s been smoking something funky in his spare time. Poisoner? I mean, maybe, if you drown or something in the ocean, but that’s not poison, that’s you not knowing how to swim. Revelator? What?

Get used to this guys (An Imperial Affliction is actually a book John made up, meaning, obviously he wrote this quote). John likes to put random adjectives and declare them “deep”. Or at least get us to believe that they are. Also, apparently tulip-guys random-adjective-sans-commas word vomit applies to time. I would go over how these adjectives don’t particularly apply to time, but that would take up too much time and then it would be stupid, lupid, noupid, troupid.

On to the author’s note. John reminds us that this is a work of fiction (yes, thank you very much) and that no one benefits from trying to “divine” whether there are any facts in it. Well, I would hope that there are. I would hope that John doesn’t write that cancer is a type of horse and that days are 23.5 hours long. It’s silly to wonder if things that happened to the author are in the book. I mean, whatever, I think it’s quite interesting, especially since some people have noted that Esther Earl had thyroid cancer and so does the main character (which will matter later on) Okay, John, I’ll try not to divine. Time to put the tarot cards away, I guess sighs. Then, ugh, this:

Such efforts attack the very idea that made-up stories matter, which is sort of the foundational assumption of our species

Ugh. Just ugh. First of all, if an author says, “the scene where Fred commits suicide was taken in part by my experiences with my friend trying to commit suicide,” that doesn’t diminish the fact that the story impacts me. It doesn’t mean that another author who says “this story is 100% stuff I wrote, no correlation to my life at all or other people lives” will make me like their story any less.

And though “made-up” stories may not pull directly from an author’s life, they definitely pull from the human experience. Made-up stories still contain emotion, people, their lives. Those these things may not be something the author has necessarily experienced (the pain from breaking up with a super-demon from Hell), there are parts of the story that the author has likely experienced: sadness, regret, breaking up, breaking up with someone who sucked, etc. No story/idea is completely “made-up” or original. Also, I don’t think that the foundational assumption of our species is that “made-up stories matter”. I think that the foundational assumption of our species, is “I need to survive”. Long before there were stories, there were people trying to survive. So points for being “deep as the shallow end”, John.

That wraps up this installment of The Fault in Our Stars spork. Next time: the pitiful first chapter wherein we meet Hazel, her whining, August, and some guy who had testicle cancer or something.

Until next time!

Comment [21]

I started to get excited about this when I read it.

Augustus Waters drove horrifically.

I thought, you know, maybe, just maybe, Augustus could have a flaw. A teeny-eeny little yellow bikini flaw? Luckily, my wish was granted. Augustus sucks at driving. Sucks so much that our Hazel is bouncing up and down in her seat like a rag-doll on a rollercoaster. If only this were a mystery, and Augustus the killer; luring girls into his car to see V For Vendetta with his smile and hot-ness and then killing them in automotive accidents.

If only.

Nope, Augustus is just a really, really shitty driver. Fortunately, he has one flaw so far. Unfortunately, this really has to do jack all with his character, because unless Hazel and Augustus are going to enter the next monster truck race, go on a road trip around the U.S.A, or never get out of the car until the end of the book it doesn’t matter whether or not he’s a good, great, horrible, or average driver. And even though Hazel is being basically thrown around the car, she doesn’t seem to care. She’s not impressed, but the least dissent she shows to Auggie is by making “snarky” jokes, which she does already. So . . . basically this is a waste of a page.

Moving on, Auggie and Hazel talk about how he only passed his test because of a Cancer Perk (thank you, unneeded capitalization), i.e. something that people with cancer get that other people don’t – passing drivers tests, autographs, trips to Disney, etc. and then they start talking about cancer.

Hazel talks about how she got pulled out of school, what happened when she got surgery, some melodramatic stuff about letting go, blah, blah. That’s really one of the things about this book that makes it hard for me to connect with the characters: their over-dramatization of everything. I get it, having cancer is hard. Yes, you face death, and have to overcome obstacles. But the way that these trials are described sounds . . . fake. Kind of like someone who hasn’t had cancer describing how cancer is. It’s . . . pumped up.

I was looking pretty dead – my hands and feet ballooned; my skin cracked; my lips were perpetually blue. They’ve got this drug that makes you not feel so completely terrified about the fact that you can’t breathe, and I had a lot of it flowing into me through a PICC line, and more than a dozen other drugs beside . . . I finally ended up in the ICU with pneumonia, and my mom knelt by the side . . . and my dad just kept telling me he loved me in this voice that was not breaking so much as already broken

As I said before, cancer is a very emotional thing. It would be a very depressing time, especially when one thought that they had no hope. Just the way that Hazel talks about this. It seems lifeless. A few weeks ago, there was an audio-diary on This American Life about a woman waiting to get her results about Huntington’s disease, which I recommend you check out . (It’s Act Two) Though I have no history of Huntington’s or know anyone with the disease, I still found it to be very emotionally moving.

The diary was very sad, it definitely had a very dark tone to it. But there were other varied emotions in there. The woman joking with her sisters about being in a nursing home, reminiscing about their mother. There was happiness, hope, and sadness, which really made it seem human, and relatable. But Hazel is this depressed about everything. There’s no little bits of humor, there’s no hopefulness. It all sounds very stunted and un-realistic. I feel kind of bad for her, but only because I “should”. The “should” feeling is not a feeling a book should aspire to inspire.

And Hazel has reason to be hopeful, if not the least bit happy.

The drug was Phalanxifor, this molecule designed to attach itself to cancer cells and slow their growth. It didn’t work in about 70 percent of people. But it worked in me. The tumors shrank.

Yes, Hazel has, quite literally a miracle drug that’s shrinking her tumors, helping her quality of life, and hey, guess what, only works in about 30% of people! And I understand, she still has cancer, and yes, she still has to wear her breathing tubes, but still. I might understand her depressed attitude if she was near-death, but at this point, she should at least feel something more than complete apathy towards life. I wouldn’t even mind her apathy, if it was written in an engaging way. Something that made me feel helpless too. But instead all I’m hearing is “life sucks, yeah, it sucks, ugh”.

Hazel continues whining about cancer until Augustus asks her about school. She tells him she has her GED and is now in college. He tells her she’s sophisticated. Oh, please, Green, I can’t take it with all this witty banter!

They get to his house, which surprisingly, is not filled with the meaningless body parts of former lovers, but rather, filled with meaningless quotes on plaques, illustrations, and pillows.

Good Friends Are Hard to Find and Impossible to Forget read an illustration above the coatrack. True Love is Born from Hard Times promised a needle-pointed pillow . . . “My parents call them Encouragements,” he explained. “They’re everywhere.”

Augustus’ house might as well be a metaphor for this book. Filled with sayings and messasges that are supposed to have some new, original thought or meaning in them, but are really just over-used clichés that everyone knows. Also, I don’t think we need to capitalize that E. If the grammar in your book starts following that of 18th century documents, then it may be time to edit. (See here )

Anyway, Hazel meets the parents, who are unimpressed with Auggie’s latest conquest.

The fact that Augustus made me feel special did not necessarily indicate that I was special. Maybe he brought home a different girl every night to show her movies and feel her up.

Sounds legit, Hazel, sounds legit. If this were real life, Augustus and Hazel would watch a movie, they’d text or something for a couple of weeks, hook up, and then not talk to each other. Then we could hear Hazel’s story sans Augustus and everyone would be much happier.

Unfortunately, that’s not what happens. Hazel and Augustus’ parents talk about dinner and Hazel mentions she’s a vegetarian. Augustus asks if it’s because “animals are just too cute”, which although I’m not a vegetarian, can’t help find just a little bit demeaning.

Most people who don’t eat meat, at least in my experience, do it: a. as a way of supporting animal rights (i.e. not eating meat to protest the huge factory farms), b. for religious reasons, or c. for health reasons. What might be the even bigger sin, however, is when Hazel responds with “I want to minimize the number of deaths I’m responsible for.” And I just know Green put this in here to make it dramatic and tragic because ooh la la, Hazel’s gonna die and look how she cares about animals isn’t she precious? Maybe Augustus’ comment wasn’t so out of line after all.

After dinner, Augustus tells his parents that they’re going to watch V for Vendetta in the basement. Auggie’s dad says no. Augustus does not like this answer. Thou doth protesteth too much, Augustus. Turns out that the basement is Augustus’ bedroom. Well that explains that.

Auggie’s dad says they have to watch the movie in the living room but he can show Hazel his basement/bedroom. Apparently it’s filled with trophies because Augustus was an A-plus-plus basketball player, but he doesn’t play anymore. Is it because he had cancer? No. Disapproval of his parents? No. Any other reasonable explanation? No. I’ll let Augustus describe it to you.

I couldn’t figure out why I was methodically tossing a spherical object through a toroidal object. It seemed like the stupidest thing I could possibly be doing.

Well if, that’s how you feel. But honestly, this could be applied to anything. “I started wondering why I was methodically moving my arms and legs to propel myself forward to a building where I would be taught in the art of knowing past events, using imaginary things we call “numbers”, speaking in different sounds, and the dreaded P.E.”

Yes, some things in our society are weird, but they mostly harken back to our biological instincts: going to the gym to look better for a potential mate, or even something like buying new clothes (as nice clothes can be an indicator for wealth and therefore a stable environment).

Honestly, Gus’ plea of irrelevance sounds like something someone who didn’t like basketball would say (or someone going through a mock-existential crisis). Then we get into hurdlers.

I started thinking about [hurdlers] running their hurdle races, and jumping over these totally arbitrary objects that had been set in their path. And I wondered if hurdlers ever though, you know, This would go faster if we just got rid of the hurdles.”

They say there are no stupid questions, but this just might be one. Hurdling races are to measure a person’s competency at running and jumping over objects in their way. We like to see and show off at how good we are at different things. If someone wanted to show their ability to run straight distances, they’d be running a race without hurdles. Hurdles are put there so that one can show their ability at running with obstacles in the way. It’s like asking someone who makes homemade jam if they know that it’d be a lot easier to just buy it from the store. Well, obviously, but that’s not the fucking point.

Also, Augustus calls his basketball crisis “the existentially fraught free throws”. How beautiful. You know the story of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”? Green, if you ever decide to re-title TFIOS, a good choice would be The Boy Who Cried What Does it all Mean?

Unfortunately for us, Hazel finds Augustus’ pointless, meaningless questions very sexy.

I like that he was a tenured professor in the Department of Slightly Crooked Smiles with a dual appointment in the Department of Having a Voice That Made My Skin Feel More Like Skin.

May I direct you again to this ? Really, truly, honestly, when has anybody in their right mind thought like this unless they were a. Parodying themselves or b. A ten-year-old girl in a Disney movie. Maybe, maybe, you’d think, oh, “I like his/her smile” or “their voice is really sexy” or something, but come on, Green.

Moving on. Augustus asks Hazel what her interests are, and laments the fact that some people, “become their disease,” which is pretty much the only cogent point that this book has made so far. There are people that are a. milking their disease for attention to the point where they forget anything else about themselves or b. so sick and miserable that they can’t think about anything else. Generally, most people like this fall into the latter category. Which is sad, but I can’t help thinking that Gus means this as a jab to people in both situations.

I usually don’t nitpick over stuff like this, but this just made my blood boil. Hazel wonders how she should “pitch herself” to Augustus Waters. Of course, you want to make good impressions on people, but I don’t think at any point any man or woman looking for a boyfriend/girlfriend should be pitching themselves to someone. You’re not the Shark Steam Mop and a blonde woman isn’t shilling you on the Home Shopping Network. If someone doesn’t like you without you doing a Broadway show of how wonderful you are, then the relationship isn’t going to work out anyway. I don’t think anyone should be treating themselves as a product they have to sell.

Hazel says she likes to read. Augustus asks for clarification.

Everything. From, like, hideous romance to pretentious fiction to poetry. Whatever.

Well, if you took out poetry you’d pretty much sum up this book. Augustus nearly orgasms at the fact that Hazel is the only teenager who likes to read poetry rather than write it. I should hope that Augustus’ views do not reflect Green’s. I’m young, I write poetry. Is it good? Not by a long shot. But, and that’s a very big but, that doesn’t mean that I don’t read poetry. I love reading poetry. We’ve started our main poetry unit in English and it’s one of my favorite things so far. Are there angsty teens spilling out the lamentations of their lost love? Yes. But for every one of those, you’ll find someone who really enjoys reading, and maybe writing poetry. We’re not exactly an exotic breed.

Augustus asks what’s Hazel’s favorite book. She tells the reader that it’s An Imperial Affliction, but she doesn’t want to tell Augustus because that’ll take away it’s special-ness and it’s betrayal. Which, I kind of, but don’t really understand. Most people don’t have a problem recommending books to people, but usually if you ask them what sort of music they like, they sort of shy away from the question, because some people tend to think music represents, or should represent who you are as a person.

Hazel kind of relates this to her book, saying that the author understood her, blah, blah, blah. If you are afraid to tell someone what your favorite book, movie, song, etc. is because you feel it represents you then most likely it’s because you’re afraid that the other person won’t like it. And if they don’t like the book, movie, song then they don’t like you. And all that means is that you’ve put too much of yourself into that thing.

Augustus isn’t impressed and Hazel is a little bit crushed. He asks her to read the novel form of his favorite video game. I would expect him to ask Hazel to read Great Expectations or something. I didn’t think people with “existentially fraught free throws” like such common things as video games.

Long story short, they watch V for Vendetta, and Hazel debunks an “encouragement” (which I refuse to capitalize) that says “Without Pain, How Could We Know Joy”, stating that the existence of broccoli doesn’t affect the taste of chocolate.

On one hand, bravo for standing up to stupidity, but on the other hand, why weren’t you saying stuff like this when we were talking about “existentially fraught free throws” or hurdlers? (Spoiler: the answer is probably Augustus’ hot-ness).

They drive home, think about kissing, don’t kiss, and Augustus reveals that he’s written his phone number in the book he gave her. How sweet.

On the next edition of The Boy Who Cried What Does it all Mean ? – a fake British accent, toe-phobia, a little girl, and a cannula. Hopefully this time it’ll be within less than 5 months.

Comment [14]

So Hazel decides to read The Prince of Dawn. She says that it’s not An Imperial Affliction, and that the main character kills too many people for her liking. Then again, it’s Augustus’ book, so she won’t complain as much as if it was a book from say, Patrick.

She wakes up late on Thursday because her mother is so afraid of her that she doesn’t dare walk into her chambers. I wish. Actually, as the Gospel according to Hazel informs us, one of the unnecessarily capitalized requirements of a “Professional Sick Person” is sleeping a lot, and she’s surprised when her mother wakes her up at ten. Her mom tells her she has class and helps her get her oxygen tank ready.

Which begs the question, if Hazel knew she had class, why would she be surprised when her mother woke her up? Maybe between the complaints and philosophical crises, there’s no room for schedules?

Hazel and her mom talk about the book Auggie gave her, Hazel’s mom saying

“Did that boy give it to you?”

To which Hazel replies

“By it, do you mean herpes?”

Which is neither funny nor polite. I know Green probably intended this to be lighthearted banter, but the way it reads I can’t help but feel like Hazel’s being rude. Her mom tells Hazel that she knows she likes him, and Hazel says

“as if this observation required some uniquely maternal instinct”

Again, both Hazel’s thoughts and words are pretty damn dismissive, which makes me wonder how in the hell these people put up with their daughter on a daily basis.

Luckily, talk turns from boys to Hazel’s half birthday, which Hazel’s mom reacts to as if it was National Orgy Day.

“It’s Thursday, March twenty-ninth!” she basically screamed, a demented smile plastered to her face . . . HAZEL, IT’S YOUR THIRTHY-THIRD HALF BIRTHDAY!”

Yes, that caps-lock makes me uncomfortable too. And it continues for another paragraph. Maybe it’s a bit nit-picky, but the “basically” isn’t effective. It still confuses me how Green can have Hazel use all these pointless “teen” words and yet have her, as someone so eloquently put it, sound like she was beaten with a thesaurus. And I know this over-zealous glee from Hazel’s mom is supposed to be because her daughter is dying, but just feels like Stock Mom #1.

When people feel that others are close to death, they may try to make celebrations even more special, or celebrate more. But this feels like Hazel’s mom just took 1000mg dose of Ecstasy.

Hazel says she just wants to stay home and watch Top Chef, which brings me to another problem with this book. Sometimes a few pop culture references can bring a book flavor and develop its time period. But littering every page with reality TV shows feels clumsy. I don’t mind a few reality TV shows or celebrities or whatever, but if that’s all your characters talk about it’s going to seriously date your book for future generations. Plus, you can’t just write a teen character by making them like reality TV.

Luckily, Hazel’s mom suggests she interacts with other humans, and saves us from another description of Hazel watching TV. And then this:

“I take quite a lot of pride in not knowing what’s cool,” I answered.

the_whittler from The Sporkings of Das Mervin called this “the most hipster thing imaginable” which is true. I think that might be the definition of “hipster.”

Hazel next goes to school, and is bored by a lecture about Frederick Douglass. There’s texts from Kaitlyn that are put in their own line-break-y spaces. I don’t understand why we need to see the exact texts. A quick summation will do. Kaitlyn says she’ll meet Hazel at 3:32, because she is so busy she has a social life that “needs to be scheduled down to the minute.” At least that’s what Hazel says.

Hazel watches some kids at the mall climb around and around a jungle gym for “no reason” which makes her ponder Auggie’s “existentially fraught free throws.” Deep. Her mom is also watching her from afar, which isn’t weird at all. Kaitlyn comes over, and I get the feeling that Hazel probably doesn’t like her all that much.

She has a British accent, and Hazel notes that, “People didn’t find the accent odd or off-putting. Kaitlyn just happened to be an extremely sophisticated twenty-five-year old British socialite stuck inside a sixteen-year-old body . . . Everyone accepted it.”

Maybe, maybe, maybe, if she moved to Indianapolis. Hazel however, mentions later in the chapter that she hadn’t been in school with her school friends for three years. If Hazel is 17, then that means she would have been taken out of school in 8th grade. I highly doubt that Kaitlyn, since the time she was 12 or 13 just started talking with a British accent and kept it up for 4 years. It’s just silly.

They talk about boys first. As a girl, I already hear girls talk about boys. This is pointless filler dialogue. It does nothing to really advance the plot. I’m not a really a proponent of the Bechdel test, but this book has failed it, and noticeably. Hazel mentions Augustus but Kaitlyn doesn’t even say anything, and then Kaitlyn is ashamed that Hazel is reading sci-fi. I guess she’s supposed to be the subtle-bitch friend then. They go shoe shopping, we learn that Kaitlyn doesn’t like her second toes (¡quirky!). She also acts as if she has made a grave mistake when she says,

“I would just die if –.”

It’s not as if Kaitlyn just said she wishes she’d rather be burned alive to a burn victim or something. I don’t think that Kaitlyn would even recognize what she was saying unless someone pointed out that irony to her.

Then Hazel tells Kaitlyn she’s tired, and sits in the mall for the next two hours reading. They literally spent thirty minutes together, if Kaitlyn was there at 3:32. Hazel’s mom is picking her up at six, which means it must be four o’clock now if she has two hours. What a great friend.

Hazel says she really likes Kaitlyn, but only bothering to spend thirty minutes with her makes it feel like she actually hates her. I’ve had to spend far more time with people I dislike and didn’t feel the need to lie after a half hour to get out of it.

Hazel tells the reader that she feels that her friends are trying to help her, but they can’t. I remember when a girl at our school had cancer. She was even sort of mean, but people were always helping her and visiting her when she was in the hospital. I don’t think that Hazel’s friends would all abandon her just because she was sick. They may be more removed, but I’m not convinced that they’d drop her like a dead body. (Though I’m not sure that Hazel would approve of that metaphor).

Hazel gives us a nice page-long description about the soldier in Midnight Dawn and it’s very boring. Then a little girl asks her to try on her breathing tubes, which is called a cannula, but it feels more like it was placed there more than anything else. Green uses it as a way to segue into this

“[Attempts to make friends] were just depressing because [everyone felt strange around me because I had cancer], except maybe kids like Jackie who just didn’t know any better.”

And help me lord if I hadn’t used those brackets, because that sentence was insanely long and cluttered without them. So Hazel wraps up the chapter by telling us her literary hero lives. I’m starting to think that a better name for this book would be The Prince of Yawn, because that’s what it’s making me do.

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