I Write What I Read

The eight-part drama, which will launch on Hulu in October, is based on John Green’s eponymous novel and stars Kristine Froseth, Charlie Plummer, Denny Love, Jay Lee, Landry Bender, Sofia Vassilieva, Uriah Shelton, and Jordan Connor. x

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Quidditch Through the Ages
The Tales of Beedle the Bard
The Mysterious Bendict Society
The Mysterious Bendict Society and the Perilous Journey
A Series of Unfortunate Events (The Bad Beginning)
The Fault in our Stars
Looking For Alaska
Paper Towns
An Abundance of Katherines
Will Grayson, Will Grayson
Let it Snow (A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle)
Fangirl
Eleanor & Park
City of Bones
City of Ashes
City of Glass
City of Fallen Angels
City of Lost Souls
Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist
Me Before You
Elixir
Jane Eyre
House of Hades
Guys Read: Other Worlds (Percy Jackson and the Singer of Apollo)
The Night Circus
Mary Poppins Comes Back
Heart of Darkness
Beauty in the Breakdown
Fourplay

Unfinished
Casual Vacancy
Mary Poppins Opens the Door
The Mysterious Bendict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma


Yeah, I kinda went crazy for Cassie Clare and John Green this year, but I regret nothing.


Well, here's another resolution to add for 2015. Finish reading The Mysterious Bendict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma, and Mary Poppins Opens the Door! Gosh, I don't remember where I placed this book! I gave up on Casual vacancy all together. Just not my thing really.

It seems that it has become my tradition to read one book from A Series of Unfortunate Events series each year. Hahaha! Seriously, it's depressing.

I should really read more classics.

Paramount has signed actress and filmmaker Sarah Polley to adapt Green’s first novel Looking for Alaska into a movie. x

 DFTBA!

I just finished rereading TFIOS today. I first read it early last year.

Obviously I reread it because I'm hoping to watch the movie this coming weekend with a friend. I just wanted to refresh and remember what exactly happened in the book so I can compare what will happen in the movie, if it really did stay true to the book. But I really have high hopes for this movie and I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that it could give me the same feels as how the book did.

I didn't cry the first time I read the book, because it felt wrong to cry for Gus and Hazel and their short-lived love story. I still didn't the second time around, but it did make me a little teary-eyed. I don't understand. I love these characters especially Gus, why don't I feel sad for them? Like I said before, it felt like an intrusion, like I had no right, like I would be like those people writing their condolences in Gus's wall.. and I know that's stupid, but yeah that's how I feel. If anything, I am happy for their characters.

Only a few are lucky to meet their soul mate and Gus and Hazel found that with each other. They are the lucky ones. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.

The Fault in our Stars movie hasn't even come out yet but Fox and John Green are already giving us another treat! Paper Towns, also by John Green, will have a movie adaptation as well! 

We already have a Quentin! Nat Wolff, who plays Isaac in TFIOS movie will have his own lead role in Paper Towns; and people behind the TFIOS movie are also coming back for Paper Towns and although John Green was always present on set of TFIOS, he did not have a title unlike in Paper Towns, he will be Executive Producer! Yeah!


Somewhere in every corner of the world, nerdfighters are having a party! Im'ma join in a sec.

Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words–and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet Francois Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps.” Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young. Clever, funny, screwed-up, and dead sexy, Alaska will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.

Surprisingly, this was the John Green book I cried to, not TFIOS. The setting of the story being in a boarding school, it opened a lot of ideas for me because I never knew what it’s like to be in boarding school and I’m not saying that this book shows it all. No. The thing is, I like stories wherein there is a community involved. The more characters, the better and merrier, I say. Besides the main characters, there is ofcourse their classmates, parents and professors. The story focuses on Pudge, Alaska, The Colonel, Takumi and maybe Lara, but also shows how they interact with the other minor characters. The pranks they play on the “weekend warriors,” avoiding the plight of the “Eagle” and other teachers, and the kind of relationships they have with their families.

Everything started with Pudge looking for his “Great Perhaps” in Culver Creek Preparatory High School. I love how John develops his characters. They are so well thought of and because of that, you get a sense that you know the characters, well, like an old friend. He likes reading biographies and it’s like an obsession of his to know their last words. The moment he met Alaska Young I knew he’d fall hard for her. He did but she already had a boyfriend which she always points out, even though it’s obvious she also likes him. I kept thinking of ways how they could end up together, but ofcourse they don’t because Alaska dies, which I didn’t knew because I make it a habit not to know anything about the book I’m about to read. So anyway, Alaska introduced Miles is to Simon Bolivar’s last words “Damn it. How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!” and this sort of becomes their basis in finding out if Alaska’s death was an accident or did she commit suicide? They figured from a clue they found, “straight and fast” written by Alaska in her book.

So the question is, do I believe that Alaska took her own life? No, as unstable of a character as she was, I believe that she loved life. “Straight and fast” could have meant a lot of things, but I don’t see it as a link to how Alaska was gonna get out of this labyrinth of a life through that. I would like to think that as much as she was a screw up, there was hope in her heart somewhere that someday she will find happiness. She loved her boyfriend and as far as I know she was pretty serious about him.  That in itself speaks of her hope for her future, a possible future with her boyfriend.

 I feel that Pudge’s grief for Alaska was a bit of an over reaction. I highly believe that he was in grief because he never knew if Alaska loved her too or that there would never be a “to be continued” with whatever it was they had going on with them. He didn’t knew her that long, yeah he knew a thing or two about Alaska that some of her old friends didn’t but I don’t think that was enough for a grief that big. I know it’s wrong to base it on how long they have met, but I feel that The Colonel and Takumi had more “right” to grieve. They shared more fun times and bad times and they knew each others secrets. When the Colonel broke down crying at her funeral, that had me right there. I cried and cried again and again. I’m still crying now. I know how it is to lose a friend, but the grief of knowing that you could’ve done something to not let that person slip from your hands is a whole different level of grief, and so I thought about that and that just had me crying even more.

The whole time Pudge and the Colonel were figuring out Alaska’s death, I kept wondering what happened to Takumi and Lara, they were also her friends, somehow I knew that they’re carrying their own grief as well, but why were they not shown? I started hating on that part, but eventually they showed up and it just sucks ‘cause Takumi had every right to say all those things to Pudge but why does it feel wrong? I guess because I felt the genuine love Pudge had for Alaska, which makes his grief okay.

 At the end of it all, what was the point of finding out if she killed herself or not? It doesn’t make her less dead. Great though that Pudge realizes that to survive the labyrinth is by way of forgiveness. I know I’m missing all these profanities underlying in the story but for me this story is about friendship and loyalty.

My Rating: 5 out of 5!