What do you make of a book that everyone has already loved to shreds? How do you pick up those pieces and see what others saw before you? Hype has a way of bringing awareness to certain books. At the same time, it can negatively impact one’s enjoyment. Without the hype I wouldn’t have loved Lola and the Boy Next Door. With the hype, I came to feel indifferent.
ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS by Stephanie Perkins
I finally decided to join the party and read Anna and the French Kiss. It’s one of those books I read because I wanted to know what the book was about. It keeps popping up everywhere online—in the blogosphere, on Instagram, as well as Twitter—and all the online bookstores seem to have it under their recommendations right now. At first I did mostly enjoy the book. For the most part, I liked Stephanie Perkins’ writing style, which was well-suited towards a sweet romance. Sadly, towards the last third, prominent cracks started appearing for me.
THE FAULT IN OUR STARS by John Green
I braved the hype and finally read The Fault in Our Stars. Before I read this book, I knew surprisingly little about it, considering the massive popularity and the release of the movie. Of course I knew that John Green wrote it and that it was about cancer. For the most part, I managed to skip past all the spoilers, especially on Tumblr. Although I didn’t manage to escape the metaphor of the cigarette. Then again, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, so it didn’t matter in the end.
