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Young Writers Society


What do you think of John Green's books?



What do you think of John Green's books?

Absolutely amazing!
46
18%
Pretty good
57
22%
Overrated
38
15%
I hate them
1
0%
I haven't read any
113
44%
 
Total votes : 255


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Tue Jun 24, 2014 1:44 am
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tinny says...



Snoink wrote:I saw his vlogs! He's funny and gives a lot of good advice out to aspiring writers!


Good point, Snoink! While I'm not a big fan of his novels, his vlogging is very good. I love love love his crash-course series!
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Tue Jun 24, 2014 3:39 am
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Lava says...



Oh yes! I have to mention the crash courses that @tinny mentioned. These things are always so informative and I LOVE them. :3
I mean, did you know Philadelphia has all this cool history to it? Interesting, yes?
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Tue Jun 24, 2014 1:24 pm
Tenyo says...



I hate tragedies.

Sorry, is that a spoiler?
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Tue Jun 24, 2014 1:49 pm
Laure says...



I frankly chance upon John a year back and while I will admit that his books are absolutely stunning because I adore their characters and plots and the ways he writes is amazing. He isn't the best, but he's close. His plots follows a similar plot line and TFIOS is probably the most cliche out of all of them. I've read LAFA, PT and yet to read WGWG. Out of all of them, I didn't like TFIOS that much, I enjoyed it but I adored An Abdundances of Catherines because I suppose, I can relate to it in some way.

I love John for his books, his ideas, his personality and his amazing talent. End of story. #DFTBA
  





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Wed Jun 25, 2014 1:40 am
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Astronaut says...



I chose absolutely amazing, because I love John Green. I think TFiOS isn't overrated, but portrayed in the wrong light. I hate when people quote the book, but don't understand the quote. There's a lot of infinity in that book, and I think infinity is an amazing concept watered down by people who think it's "deep" or whatever. I chose the option that I like the most, though overrated could have been true.

That being said, Paper Towns is amazing, An Abundance of Katherines was very very good, and I just started Looking for Alaska (not bad so far, but his books usually don't pick up until a bit later). I think his vlogs are better than his books, to be honest.

His books aren't flawless. There are "special snowflake" characters as well as Mary Sues, his plots are really similar, but I love them because they are well written, and his plots are similar at the core but have layers upon layers making them unique and amazing.
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Wed Jun 25, 2014 9:45 am
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Demeter says...



I'm loving the discussion! :)
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Thu Jun 26, 2014 4:15 am
joshuapaul says...



John Green, does or attempts to do the same thing everytime he picks up a pen. The problem with his writing is he has already reached the limitation of his formula.

TFIOS was worth a read
Looking for alaska was better
Paper Towns is sub par
Will Grayson Will Grayson, would have been much better if it was a Levithan solo project
An abundance of katherines, was actually not too bad

All in all, it's airport fiction.
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Thu Jun 26, 2014 4:37 am
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PiesAreSquared says...



Who is john green again?
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Thu Jun 26, 2014 8:30 am
chancesnchanges says...



I have read 3 of his books-- Looking for Alaska, The Fault In Our Stars & An Abundance of Katherines. I was captivated by his writings and, most especially, by the lessons conveyed in each of his books. I really admire them :)
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Sat Jun 28, 2014 3:18 pm
SushiSashimi333 says...



Of course, I've only read 1 :P
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Sun Jun 29, 2014 12:36 pm
kayfortnight says...



I've only read The Fault in Our Stars (mainly 'cause a friend begged me to) and it didn't live up to the hype. It was a good book, but it wasn't "the second coming" or quadruple chocolate cake or anything like that.

Of course, I don't tell my friend that:)

Good, but overrated.

Although...

Yeah. A seventeen-year-old kid said this in a casual conversation. Like, seriously?


I'm sixteen. You've never heard me speak in real life. Admittedly, I don't talk like that all the time, but I do talk similar occasionally. I...well, I think everyone does it somewhat, but I dumb down my speech when talking to some of my friends. Not consciously-it just happens. Don't you have a difference in your speech from talking to different people? I know when I was talking to my friends in Honors English, in eighth grade, we philosophized quite a bit. That definitely wasn't what I disliked about the book. Not every teenager speaks the way they're written in most novels.
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Mon Jun 30, 2014 3:37 pm
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Cole says...



@kayfortnight

kayfortnight wrote:
Yeah. A seventeen-year-old kid said this in a casual conversation. Like, seriously?


I'm sixteen. You've never heard me speak in real life. Admittedly, I don't talk like that all the time, but I do talk similar occasionally. I...well, I think everyone does it somewhat, but I dumb down my speech when talking to some of my friends. Not consciously-it just happens. Don't you have a difference in your speech from talking to different people? I know when I was talking to my friends in Honors English, in eighth grade, we philosophized quite a bit. That definitely wasn't what I disliked about the book. Not every teenager speaks the way they're written in most novels.


Here are more nauseating quotes:

Spoiler! :
"My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations."

"Some infinities are bigger than other infinities."

"That's the thing about pain. It demands to be felt."

"I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is improbably biased toward the consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it-or my observation of it-is temporary?"

"There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that's what everyone else does."


With the particular quotes I shared, never once have I ever heard a person (except maybe my film literature teacher, who is also a novelist) speak so eloquently in a casual conversation, especially teenagers. The closest I can imagine anyone's thoughts or speech potentially matching the eye-rolling magniloquence of the dialogue/monologues in The Fault in Our Stars is if they were deliberately planned.

When we speak, our words are at the mercy of our emotions. We falter, we stutter, we use contractions, we use improper grammar; that's what makes dialogue feel alive and real. Dialogue and monologues shouldn't be mini dissertations. They should be tangled, warped, distorted with the powers of emotion and humanity. John Green just doesn't get that.
  





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Mon Jun 30, 2014 10:00 pm
cassaundra1 says...



I have not read the "fault in our stars" but the movie was amazing.

the whole thing had me In tears.

"it was brilliant"

I love it so much because the characters are well written :D
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Tue Jul 01, 2014 6:25 pm
PrehistoricEchoes says...



First, I want to clarify that I don't want to offend anyone who is a fan of John Green. I'm just spouting my opinion, so brace for a rant.

I had to read Looking for Alaska last year for English, and I have to say, while well-written, I hated it. Not because the plot or the whole premise, but on a moral and psychological level. Call me callous and cruel or stupid or uncaring or unhuman for whatever reason, but I actually didn't really care about the characters in the book. The reason I hated the book was because it made me lose faith in the human race. The whole book was "realistic," meaning all the teenage characters did was swear, drink, smoke, and talk about (and have) sex, and those items were the main focus of the book. The main character was bland and heavily based on the author (after reading up on John Green's past, I nearly started referring to the lead as "John Green") and Alaska was a walking contradiction overly obsessed with sex. Ultimately, the book left me thinking, "If all humankind is like this, then I don't want to be human anymore."

Frankly, when I read fiction, I like to be reminded of the good people are capable of. Realistic and dark characters are fine. I don't like naive, blind optimism, but this sort of "realism" where the only thing that truly matters to anyone is sex or alcohol just isn't something I can read and enjoy. Plus, when the words "Let's go on a porn hunt" appeared, I pretty much quit wanting to read it then and there.

While I have nothing against the writer or his fans, I think he's very overrated, and his idea of "realism" makes me ecstatic for human extinction.
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Fri Aug 22, 2014 4:34 pm
writerwithacause says...



I started Searching for Alaska a few weeks ago and I thought, whoa I really like his style, but then I read spoilers on the internet and I thought not another sad story so I gave up on it.
I know The fault in our stars must be the same, so I'll skip it for now. I am just not in the mood for sad stories anymore.
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