paper towns. john green. (276)

i decided to read paper towns, because there is a panel discussion about it at bookcon.  i think it conflicts with a panel i actually want to see, but decided to read it, just in case i catch the panel.  i should also add that i think the panel is for the film based on the book.

so i read, watched, and loved the fault in our stars, however, the same can not be said for paper towns.  to be completely honest, they shouldn't have turned it into a movie.  the storyline is not that interesting and the characters are not as likable.  plus i just watched the trailer and it looks horrible.  maybe its because i know the ending, but it seems like a lot of hype for a lame ending.  

and i need to read the rest of his books, but if the rest of his books are like paper towns, it might be safe to say that green is a one hit wonder.

paper towns is like the poor man's the virgin suicides.  the obsessive neighbor, untoucable free spirited girl, but no interesting chronicles of her life and definitely none of the deep and insightful coming of age knowlege.

the novel is told from the point of view of q .  he has spent his life, all 17 years of it (i think), admiring and loving his neighbor margo roth spiegelman from afar.  they used to be best friend, their defining moment of friendship was when they found a dead body at age 9.  margo became a popular party girl while q became a nerd that hung out with band kids.  i am not hating, q and i would have ran in the same circles, if we went to high school together.  i liked his friend radar especially due to its obsession with updating a wikipedia-esque website, but ben was annoying and i would have hated him in real life.

any hoot, margo discovered her boyfriend was cheating on her and goes on this crazy revenge spree and enlisted the help of q.  margo gave q a talk about paper towns and how people are fake and not as the appear. the next day she disappeared.

q was worried that she committed suicide (i have to admit by the end i wish that she had.) he believed that she left him clues to find her.  it started with a woody guthrie picture (quick sidenote as i was reading about guthrie's poster and his guitar that read "this machine kills facists." i was like where have i read that? and i remember that steve martin's memoir mentioned it as well.) and leads him to developments that were never completed.

q did a lot of bad searching for margo, seriously how did he not realize that those holes in the wall were left by marks on a map?!?! he spent a lot of time overanalyzing leaves of grass, i love whitman but green was trying to hard there.  q discovered he is capable

of being adventurous, realized he put margo on a pedestal.  oh and he missed out on alot of partying before graduation.

in the end, he learned (and i did as well, maybe the only great thing to happen from reading this) that a paper town was a fake town that map makers made up and placed on maps to discover copyright infringement.  and on a paper town near nyc, there was a post about the population being one until some date.  which turned out to be the day after graduation, but since it took 22 hours to drove, q missed his graduation.

q and his friends (btw another big critique is that it lacey and ben as a couple happened really quickly!) go on a road trip.  and though fun, they were really geeky about it, i mean really would teens be that good about planning to the minute?

anyway, they found margo.  she didn't commit suicide but she was a bitch.  she and q resolved life, realizing that they both cared for these ideas of each other but not that actual person.  it was supposed to be deep but i felt like green was trying to hard.

in the end, i was disappointed by the ending, because after all of q's effort, margo was still a beezy.  and i know they talked it out but still it seemed like a big waste of time.  though i guess q did grow as a person.

all in all, this book was lame.

blankets. craig thompson. (253)

blankets has been on my to read list for a very long time.  however, when i saw it on time's 100 best young adult books, i decided to finally check it out.

i really wish that i had read this when it first came out in 2003.  i identified with craig and would have enjoyed reading this closer to when i went through a similar experience.  blanket is an semi-autobiographical graphic novel about thompson's experience growing up in a religious household and his first love.  what i identified with was craig's questioning of his faith and the church leaders insistence on following christian path.  my questioning of my religion, as i discussed before was due to the church views on homosexuality and how i thought it was unfair that families were separated unless they were sealed in the temple.  for craig it was contradiction in the bible and the realization that though the bible may be the word of god it had been filtered through men.  also reading his pastor advise him against going to art school due to the possibility of exposure to nude models and the risk of becoming a homosexual, reminded me of an conversation i had once with a girl i went to church with.  (i may have shared this before in another post, so i apologize for being redundant.  a girl i went to church camp asked me where i was going to school, and i told her ucla.  she then asked me what i was going to do.  i explained study history.  but she asked again, but you go to byu to get married, how are you going to get married.  i think i just smiled as a response.  though i will say that i am grateful for being raised mormon.  as child growing up, we did not fear god, but saw jesus as a loving savior, and were not made to be scared of hell as i saw with craig.

but college was an eye opening experience for me, like craig.  i wasn't born in a completely rural area like him, but being exposed to the big city of los angeles, allowed me to realize that there was more out in the world.

the story of his first love was sweet and like should happen with all first loves, he grew as a person.  he was able to see the world for as it was and not for what he was told it was.  i think the greatest thing was that he reconnected with his brother after seeing how close raina was with her siblings.  it was nice to see them become friends in the end.  (i should also note know it was really difficult to read about his brother's molestation as a child.  craig should have done something, but easier said then done because he was a child himself, but still sickening to read.)

i also found it disheartening to read about raina's adoptive siblings.  i think it was wonderful that her parents decided to adopt two children with disabilities, however, their reasoning behind it seemed unsound.  they adopted the ben and laura as a thank you to god for blessing them with two children.  a beautiful gesture, but neither one were equipped to take care of them.  and in the end, resulted in their divorce and the responsibility becoming that of raina.  i might sound insensitive, but you should adopt to truly help a child not to prove a point about how blessed you are. 

but a wonderful coming of age story and beautiful illustrations.  i also loved that the library was a tool in helping craig discover the world and who he was.  definitely a top young adult book!

  

how to build a girl. caitlin moran. (247)

i thought i picked up caitlin moran's how to build a girl based on flavorpill recommendation but i couldn't find the article.  even though i can't remember where i saw it, i am glad that i decided to check it out.  and i mean the lena dunham blurb on the cover is totally unnecessary, helpful but this book is amazing it can sell itself. 

i hate to be so late to the game on moran but i knew nothing about her before i read this novel.  apparently, moran is a famous british journalist and wrote this feminist book called how to be a woman back in 2012 (i have since put in a request for this book).  i hate to admit this but i remember her book being on sale on amazon but judged a book by a cover, and didn't give it a thought.  it was her skunk hair.  i didn't take her seriously but i really wish i did!!

how to build a girl is loosely based on moran's life.  at least that is what the disclaimer at the beginning said.  she was a music journalist, had a large family, and grew up in wolverhampton.  but the lead character, johanna is not moran.

when we first meet johanna, you can't help but feel bad for the poor girl.  she was fat, friendless, awkward, and a chronic masturbator.  she masturbated a lot!  and with her older brother in the room and her younger brother in the bed next to her.  when i read that i was certain that is why lena dunham has so much love for moran as her blurb claimed.  seriously, what is with people masturbating with siblings in their bed, in high school, i felt bad if anyone else was in the house at the same time that i did it!

johanna's family was also poor, due to her father's dreams of being a rock star which resulted in him really just being an alcoholic.  he also did have an accident but still he just drank and lived off of his benefits.  however, when johanna spills the beans about her father being on benefits to a neighbor, which would

result in them losing them; she decided to get a job to help out.

her first attempts to time a job, a paper route and a starring in a production of "annie" are unsuccessful.  however, when johanna's luck changed when she  won a poetry contest (though her luck didn't change completely because she embarassed herself on tv.  however, it did help johanna realize that she wanted to be a writer and that writing would be the key to her helping her family and getting out of wolverhampton.

since johanna did not know anything about indie rock, she had to start completely from scratch.  she listened to a lot of music, but nothing that would be considered "cool".  her rock education started via the radio and the library, where she checked our CDs.  since she was starting from scratch, johanna needed a rock persona which results in her building a girl.  johanna created dolly wilde, named after oscar wilde's alcoholic lesbian niece.  i loved the nod to oscar wilde and dolly was totally the best choice for johanna, but i loved the name laurel canyon.  i have always wanted an amazing band-aid name, like "almost famous", and was always sad that penny lane was used because it is perfect. and laurel canyon is so good! i wish i thought of it.  oh, well.

so dolly wilde wore all black and a top hat like slash.  and after johanna sent in reviews to the magazine, "D&ME", she became a music journalist.  she also quite school to have more time to write.  one of her first assignments was attending a smashing pumpkins show, which her dad took her too cos she is so young.  initially, she tries to take notes, but in the end, realized that she just needed to enjoy the moment instead of being an observer.  dolly, even managed to get backstage to talk to the band!  

after the pumpkins, she was sent to ireland to interview john kite.  he was described as a jeff buckley type, but due to his fur coat and dandyish ways, i thought of him as oscar wilde. i also expected him to turn out gay.  however, dolly and kite had a wonderful time together, (they sounded like soulmates to me.) and she fell in love with him.  

oh and my favorite quote from them hanging out was this:

"you gonna norwegian wood it, love?", he said as i crawled off to sleep in the bath." 

so freakin' cute and clever!!!

however, after she sent in her interview, the calls stopped coming, because the piece was too fan-ish.  and with this realization dolly wilde went wild.

first it started with booze, she started drinking to created this wild child persona. then, she started writing these cruel reviews with created this bitch persona.  and last, she started having sex which resulted in this sex adventurerer persona.  and though it was hilarious and fun to read all of this, it was not good for dolly.  she started sleeping with the wrong men and making a compete mess of her life.  (i could totally relate.) 

in the end, after throwing herself at john kite, she realized she needed to

stop being dolly wilde and start being johanna again.

as a result, chapter 24 is wonderful advice for any girl, particularly teenage girls, but any female trying to find herself. we all make mistakes but as moran advises via johanna:

you'll find the tiny, right piece of grit you can pearl around, until nature kicks in, and your shell will just quietly fill with magic? even while you're busy doing other things.  what your nurture began, nature will take over, and start completing, until you stop having to think about who you'll be entirely--as you're too busy doing, now.

what a great little pearl of wisdom!

in the end johanna, begins her journey towards her new self.  she decided to move to london and continue her writing but as a fan and as herself!

this book was great and i highly recommend it.  johanna is hilarious and i would totally be her friend if she was a real person.  

just look at this quote:

when bill murray says shit like this, people completely lost it.  i wish used bill murray.  i hope everything i've read about evolution is wrong, and i eventually evolve into him.

bloody brilliant!  this book is filled with gems like this.

if you are a girl, women, riot grrl and lived or loved the nineties you need to read this book.  so good and i look forward to reading moran's other works.