A Multitude of Faults in Alaska

Lately a lot of people I know have told me that I have to read The Fault in our Stars, including people that I don't usually talk books with. In fact, it's mostly been people that I've never talked books with. The last time that happened was a few years back, when Twilight came out - which I never got around to reading because I was a fresher in undergrad. This time things are a little different.

I read Looking for Alaska when I was in high school, and I remember being squicked out by the dynamic of the oral sex scene between Lara and Miles, followed closely by being irritated by the male character's lack of reciprocity and the female character's lack of dimensionality. There were other things that bothered me about the book, including the incident with the stolen Breathalyzer and why that was important or proved anything, but it was a first book. With A Multitude of Katherines I realised that the main character was reducing all of his girlfriends to equations, threw the book across the room, and decided to never read John Green again, because there were too many good books out there for me to waste my time on ones that were so half-baked.

And the years rolled on, and YA boomed while I had my back turned, and now everyone I know insists that he has produced a masterpiece, and I'm a bit sceptical as to whether the author who squicked out pre-ideals 16 year old me is capable of producing a masterpiece. But then, in the past ten years I managed to gain the education and vocabulary to explain what about his debut novel bothered me, so it is not inconceivable that he has also improved with time. So at first I thought that I'd go back and re-read all of Green's books, just so I could explain coherently why I don't like his work when people gush at me about the latest instalment. 

But then I had an idea.

My first degree is in analysing books, essentially. And it's been a long time since I've had the chance to compare or contrast two texts. And it's been a long time since I've had the chance to read some Young Adult fiction. And the overlap between people who I've heard mock Twilight and the people who are telling me to read Stars now is substantial. 

So, as soon as I can hunt up used copies of both of them, I think I'm going to do a comparative reading of The Fault in our Stars and Twilight, concentrating on the things in Green's early work that bothered me when I was younger. Off the top of my head (and ten years on) that would include the complexity and agency of female characters, the consistency of tone, the logic of the plot and the world, and the overall shape and pacing of the novel.

And since there's no where else for me to put it, whatever I come up with will probably wind up showing up here.