By Faith Zochowski
Some may know John Green from the Green brother’s Crash Course episodes on YouTube. Some may know him as the author of the beloved The Fault in our Stars. The former John Green is the one I will be discussing today. Yes, John Green is the author of The Fault in our Stars, a classic, tragic love story of the 2010s. Green is also the author of multiple other young adult novels such as Papertowns, An Abundance of Katherines, and Looking for Alaska. This Falcon 4 series will give you a glimpse of what these books entail!
1. The Fault in our Stars
This novel tells the not-so-typical love story of Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters. The two meet at a support group for those dealing with a terminal illness. Hazel falls for Gus’s witty humor and peculiar outlook on life, considering his cancer diagnosis. The book details both their love story as well as what their lives look like living with cancer. Their story thickens when Augustus uses his dying wish to take Hazel to see her favorite author in Amsterdam, who is seeking answers to his unfinished book An Imperial Affliction. The reader follows along in their journey as they fall in love, learning all of their inside jokes and seeing their playful banter. Green’s novel is moving, heart breaking, and inspiring and is the perfect romance read. It has also been adapted into a major motion picture starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort.
2. Looking for Alaska
Looking for Alaska is divided into two sections: main character Miles “Pudge” Hatler’s life before and after meeting Alaska Young. Pudge has an obsession with famous last words and is on a mission to “seek the Great Perhaps,” which are the famous last words of 15th century French writer Francois Rabelias. Pudge begs his parents to go to Culver Creek Boarding School to set his mission into action. Miles’s roommate Chip “The Colonel” Martin helps him get out of his shell and introduces him to Alaska, who has a similar mission to Miles which is to “get out of this labyrinth,” a question proposed by Gabriel García Márquez in his book The General in His Labyrinth. Alaska interprets the labyrinth as suffering. Her friends discover that she was quietly suffering when she purposely crashes her car into a police cruiser, resulting in her death. The second half of the book, “after,” follows Miles and Chip’s journey in investigating her death. The book is filled with philosophical and psychological questions and analysis and is the perfect read to really get you thinking. Hulu adapted the book into an 8-episode series.
3. An Abundance of Katherines
Colin Singleton has been dumped by not one, not two, but 19 girls all named Katherine – and yes, all spelled the same way too. The child prodigy has devoted his life to being smart, and when he graduates high school, he can speak several languages. He also has devoted his life to only dating girls that are named Katherine, and after Katherine #19 breaks up with him on the day of high school graduation, he feels he has finally had enough. His best friend Hassan encourages him to go on a road trip with him to a small town in Tennessee where they meet Lindsey and her mom Hollis, who is a factory worker at the only factory in the town. Hollis hires Colin and Hassan to interview the factory workers of the present and past so she can keep a history of the town. While the boys are working on this project, Colin is working on his formula, a formula he has created where he believes he can predict how long a relationship will last, how it will end, and who will end it. It is evident that Colin is a prodigy based on the graphs provided in the book, as well as his footnotes at the bottom of certain pages, giving a brief history or scientific explanation on certain subjects. The book follows the far-fetched journey of a young, nerdy boy finding love.
4. Papertowns
Book four of this Falcon 4 series tells the story of Quentin “Q” Jacobson and his obsession with neighbor Margo Roth Speigelman. Q believes everyone gets a miracle, and his is that he happened to live next to “the most fantastically gorgeous creature that God had ever created.” That was enough for Q as he came to terms that Margo would never give him or his two dorky friends the time of day. That is until one night Margo shows up at Quentin’s bedroom window, asking him to be her partner in a mission to seek revenge from her friends who have wronged her. After this adventurous all-nighter, Q shows up to school to find Margo absent. After multiple days of missed school, Margo is declared missing. Margo is notorious for going missing and leaving elaborate clues telling her whereabouts. Quentin, along with his friends Ben and Radar and Margo’s best friend Laney, work together to piece together the clues and find her. In cracking the code, the group also discovers Margo is not the girl they thought they knew. This novel has also been adapted into a movie starring Nat Wolff and Cara Delevingne.
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