Book 27: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Here is another YA book that has been floating around my periphery and I finally decided to read it.  I guess I also finally read it because the movie is coming out and I watched a segment on the legion of fans that this book had and I was curious.

Lets see...I liked the book, but I was hoping for a bit more, but I can see how this book is important to younger readers.  I have been listening to a podcast called What are you reading?  Where the host often asks about the book that turned your head as a young reader, and I see that this could be one of those books.

In a nutshell it is a book about Cancer kids who fall in love and die.  It feels like it shines a unflinching eye on the subject and speaks on a topic that most kids have little connection to. 

After reading this book, I was given the typical suggestions of what to read next.  And of course they were all YA novels and now ones on kids who die.  I have mixed feelings on this.  In the world that lives produces recommendation only off of current purchases or reads, I am afraid of being typed cast as a YA reader.  I don't have a problem reading YA if it is done well, and I have a daughter who is a reader and starting to pick up some of these books.  But I want to be able to read other types of books.  Ones that are written for adults and have some meat on them.  It seems like I get the Classics, which is fine, but it seems like the only digging down that occurs is that they are classics and nothing else or now I am getting YA book recommendation.  Can it combine the and see what else comes up?

I find this similar to Pandoras recommendation to me on music.  I like a certain 1 Hit wonder from the 80's, who had gone on and produced many wonderful albums and styles.  I would like a recommendation of songs from one of his later albums to see what else is out there and I all I get recommended is 80's New Wave music, which I like but is not like his jazzier, moodier later stuff so I am left frustrated and type cast.  I have always had an eclectic taste in music, as with most things in life.  Give a good sampling of a whole bunch of stuff.

Ah anyways. that is a tangent that is not really well thought out, just some frustrations.

Back to the book.  Yes it is a book I will be OK if my daughter reads, I would just like her to be a tad bit older as there is a bit of sex involved.