» Everyday Musings: "You do not immortalize the lost by writing about them. Language buries, but does not resurrect."

thelonesomewanderer:

Here it is, my copy, of (in my opinion) John Green’s best work ever. Ever. I figured highlighting would take up so much time and at the end I’d be left with a blue-paged book so I made a decision to just mark the memories with pink post-its. Yes, the book’s jolly-looking but what’s inside just crushes my heart. 

The story revolves around 2 cancer kids who meet in a Support Group in the Literal Heart of Jesus. The girl’s Hazel, a sixteen-year old who’s terminally ill but is just buying time thanks to experimental drugs and the boy’s Augustus, the typical hot guy except he was missing a leg due to amputation cause by osteosarcoma but is in recession—or so I thought. Naturally I’d be rooting for them since they had that “spark” from the moment they met and boy did I root for them, til the end. 

John Green has this knack of writing about smart, philosophical, and witty characters and I was glad that I was not let down in this story. I followed the conversations as if I were with A & H the whole time just mesmerized by their candidness. Things were looking up for them in terms of their love lives but sad to say, not for their lives lives. By the time I reached this page “lighting up like a tree” I found it harder to move on to the next page. Normally, I’d get excited to see what happens next but suddenly my hands felt too heavy to flip to the next page because I wanted the story to just stop at the good part. I mustered every ounce of courage I had to get to the end and it wasn’t easy. 

I’m not ashamed to say that I’m an emotional wreck. I cry because of and for the simplest things. I cry because I’m happy, I cry because I’m sad, I cry because I can. And cry I did because of this book. Heck I even wondered if I would ever stop crying since I was just on page 153—I had 160 pages to go and tears were starting to pool on my pillow. 

I knew cancer was a sensitive subject since I’ve lost a fair share of loved ones due to this stupid illness that isn’t really bad since all it wants is to live but I’ve never really met cancer kids and I don’t know if I’d be strong enough to actually meet one since I’ll not be able to not compare them to the characters in this book. The loved ones I’ve lost were grandmothers who I know have had enough experience in this world, who had the privilege to experience loving and being loved. But A & H were so young and just starting and it tears me up inside to know that it will not end well. Well maybe it did, but no, not really. 

I can’t believe I was so excited to read this book because it just it killed kills me. I feel like I’m so attached to it already and that isn’t good. It never is good to get too attached to something. Much less a (beautiful beautiful) work of fiction. Aside from that I was sort of happy and jealous for A & H because despite the fact that someone (I won’t tell who) dies, they got to experience love, in its grandest sense. As much as H didn’t want to since she loathed being a ticking time bomb and leaving casualties everywhere, it just couldn’t be helped and I in turn can’t help but be envious of her—not because of the cancer but because of getting to experience love, in the romantic sense. 

I guess this is the longest book review I’ve ever done and just like my other reviews I’d gladly encode the passages I loved so much but again, take a look at the picture above. There’s just too much too write that I’m afraid I’ll reproduce the entire book in just this one entry so maybe I’ll give you SOME and save the rest for a rainy day. 

P.S.

In truly conservative fashion ratings only range from 1-5. But I guess I’d go all postmodern here and give it a 7.

BILLION

“Okay,” he said. “I gotta go to sleep. It’s almost one.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay,” he said.

I giggled and said, “Okay.” And the line was quiet but not dead. I almost felt like he was there in the room with me, but in a way it was better, like I was not in my room and he was not in his, but instead we were together in some invisible and tenuous third space that could only be visited on the phone. 

“Okay,” he said after forever. “Maybe okay wil be our always.”

“Okay,” I said.

It was Augustus who finally hung up.