As much as I think the alternating authors for alternating chapters is a gimmick to keep both stories a little more suspenseful than they actually are, I am really enjoying this book. John Green has a way of making insignificant and unremarkable main characters into some kind of social litmus paper; proving to me that even the most drab friends of mine from my childhood in the woods would be perceived as unbelievable if I had the energy to write them out the way that I remember them. The dread headed mountain hermit that, every summer, would build an ewok-style tree house and move into it as a summer home away from his mother's house. The hot and busty pot head neighbor who would invite me over after school, ask me to do her Earth Science homework for her, which I would happily do day after day after day because when I finished, she would get me stoned to the high heavens while she danced around her room, whipping her hair all over the place while singing Violent Femmes, smoking a joint and driving me crazy in her over-sized t-shirt and panties. She got her weed from a mostly homeless guy who lived in a tiny shithole appartment that was always full of dirty dishes and zombie people.
The more I think about it, the less I think my life is suitable for a John Green audience. Maybe that is why he hooked up with David Levinthan on this book, so show a bit more edge and to drop a few more F-bombs.
Fuck yeah, John Green.
got mine sitting on the shelf, waiting to be cracked open - have to finish Dune first, and then the new Christopher Moore book...
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