Reviews: The Fault In Our Stars and Evermore

Are you the kind of person who has to read the book before the movie comes out?  I AM! 

Friends have been telling me to read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green for a while now.  I’ve owned the book for months, and it’s been sitting in my three-foot tall waiting-to-be-read stack. With the movie release this Friday, I had renewed urgency.

Oh my! Where to start?

This was a stellar novel – absolutely wonderful.  I bawled through practically the whole thing but not because it was sad the whole time. I was a crying maniac because the story was so beautiful.  John Green perfectly captures the bitter sweetness of life when someone’s faced with a horrible diagnosis, and in the end, this is truly a love story not a cancer story.  Even so, some of the scenes were a little raw for me because they reminded me of my sisters’ battles with cancer, and it’s hard not to flashback to all of those overwhelming emotions.  And for all of my good intentions in getting the book read in order to see the movie, I am not sure that I’ll go.  I don’t want to be the freaky crying lady ruining everyone else’s movie-watching experience.  Please let me know what you think of the movie, if you see it this weekend, but READ the book first! There's still time.

Here's the official movie trailer.

After reading a story, however beautiful, that firmly reminded me of my mortal place in the world, I needed something different and began the Immortals Series by Alyson Noel. The series starts with Evermore and follows the story of Ever, a teen trying to put her life back together following a near death experience in a car crash which claimed the lives of her parents and little sister.  The problem for Ever is that she awoke from the crash with a little something extra. She’s psychic, which can be very helpful in some situations but makes interaction at school a painful experience, until Damen arrives.  Ever’s psychic abilities don’t work on Damen, and she can’t hear his thoughts, but apparently he can hear hers.  I have to leave it there because I don’t want to give anything else away.  Don’t worry. Everything I’ve mentioned so far you’ll learn in the first few pages. 

Alyson Noel does a lovely job weaving this story line together with so many surprises.  I am already well into the second book of the six book series. Evermore was released in 2009 and was followed by Blue Moon, Shadowland, Dark Flame, Night Star, and Everlasting. At least I won’t have that agonizing wait for the next book and can read right through the series.  (Better late than never!)

I understand that Summit Entertainment has optioned the film rights for this series, but I haven't seen anything about it moving into production. 

Have you already read these books?  Let me know what you thought of them.