Last year Mrs. Boor and several of my friends recommended The Fault in Our Stars for me to read. I knew how popular of a book it was and how many of my friends loved it, but I didn't really think it would be a book for me. I'm very picky in finding books that I like, but I have loved John Green ever since I picked up The Fault in Our Stars last year. Even though it was an emotional story, it was one that many people can relate to. Everyone will fall in love one day and everyone will lose someone they love at one point or another in their life. These are things that can't be controlled. They're just a part of life. In reading The Fault in Our Stars and beginning Looking for Alaska, I believe that Green tries to relate his characters in books to real life people and things that happen in life.
I've noticed so far that I believe his main focus is to have a teen audience. In both books, his main characters are teenagers faced with the everyday struggles of the average high school student. I would like to know why his main focus is teenagers. And more specifically, teenage girls. So far, Looking for Alaska seems to focus on the struggles of a teenage boy who is faced with trying to fit in at a new school where he chose to go because he wanted to be away from his parents. Like most teenagers, he is faced with peer pressure to do things like smoke, drink and have sex. All of these are things that teenagers either have done or been pressured into doing at some point. Green's books are easy to relate to and fun to read.
John Green writes in a narrative kind of diary style. The protagonist tends to narrate the story in their perspective. In both The Fault in Our Stars and Looking for Alaska, the main character tells the story. I feel that because the story is written in a diary style, that there is much more detail. I've noticed that Green uses a lot of teenage phrases in the stories which makes me think that his books are more focused on a teen and young adult audience.
ReplyDeleteJohn Green's books have a fair amount of dialogue. From his books that I have read, they have been written in first person point of view. I believe that because his books are written in a kind of diary style, that his stories are very relate-able to teenagers.
I believe that the author study is a good project. It makes a student pick an Author and stick with them. It kind of forces you to find an author that you like and read some of their books. As I read the Fault in Our Stars I loved the book even more. From reading several other books from the same author, I’ve realized that when I find one book that I like, I usually like the author’s other books as well. This project gave me an opportunity to find another author that I like.
ReplyDeleteWe were asked to come up with a working question that we would need to find the answer to about the author and his writing. This requires you to do research on the author and learn new things about them. For my author, I wanted to know if his books were inspired by his personal experiences or true stories. I found lots of information that some of his books had ideas of things that really occurred in his life which I thought was really interesting and I liked it. Overall, I think the author study was a good project.