It all started with a recommendation from a friend. I was suffering through an audiobook from an author whose first novel I’d devoured. But the second was unbearable, and because I have a nine-month-old and am unable to read for pleasure without cutting into much needed sleep, I was looking for something engaging that I could enjoy around the house/in the car.
“John Green is amazing. But don’t listen to The Fault in Our Stars while your driving. You’ll cry so hard that you’ll get into an accident.”
Well, how could I resist? Something that could move me to tears? I had to get this book.
Alas, our local library did not have an audio copy for Fault, so I ended up starting with Green’s Looking for Alaska, which happened to be another recommendation from a different friend. Though I wasn’t sure it was the right fit at first–the narrative voice was drastically different from the last book I enjoyed–but fifteen minutes later, I was hooked.
One day while driving to a restaurant five minutes from our home, my husband listened along with me. And in that short time, he was enthralled.
After inhaling Alaska, I ran back to the library and picked up another of his novels entitled Paper Towns. Gobbled it. Loved it. Next!
I am now halfway through An Abundance of Katherines, and yesterday, I just received notice that the hardcover version of Fault that I placed on hold was ready and waiting for me.
After these two, there is just one novel left by Green, and then, I will be left waiting for his next publication. I’ve been through this before, falling in love with an author and consuming her/his books too soon without savoring the pages, the moments. I know the pain. Yet I can’t help myself. I am ____ years older than Green’s target audience, but I am still captivated by his writing and his creativity and his compelling, original, beautiful characters. I am a Greeniac. A Greenhard? A Greenmachine. And I don’t want it to end. But just as Pudge learns in Alaska:“Everything that comes together falls apart.”
It is clear to me that I have a literary crush on John Green, meaning that I am so infatuated with his writing that it has become a part of my thinking, my world in the last several weeks. It’s been a long time since I felt this way about an author, and it’s been a treasure to experience it again. More than that, it’s given me inspiration for my own writing, something I needed so much, something that I hope will push me to new depths as I make my way through my next project.
Have you recently developed any literary crushes?
I’ve done the same thing: devouring an author’s books and then having to wait for their next book to come out. Those authors for me are Jodi Picoult and Diane Chamberlain. I love them! I read Looking For Alaska about 4 years ago and loved it. However, I’m not sure I’ll have the same taste in books as I did back then. I’ll give it a try though.
John Green is my literary crush too – The Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns, An Abundance of Katerines, Will Grayson Will Grayson, Looking for Alaska. I can’t get enough!
I will have to check him out. I most definitely have a crush on Jonathan Tropper after a recommendation from Simply Solo’s Catherine.
-L
Thanks for sharing this. I’m always looking for inspiration and depth.
And a good cry now and then…