pyoung's reviews
20 reviews

had so much more potential ..

I just adore John Greens writing style and I love flawed characters. The emotions and struggles with mentall ilness seemed really accurate and real to me. Aside from that I love that we also see what mental illness does to the friends and family of the main character.

My annotations: (SPOILERS!)

'But I was beginning to learn that your life is a story told about you, not one that you tell'
'Of course, you pretend to be the author. You have to.' (p. 1)

'I'd scream and run away, flailing my arms but not actually scared, because back then all emotions felt like play, like I was experimenting with feeling rather than stuck with it. True terror isn't being scared; it's not having a choice in the matter.' (p. 22)

'I was so good at being a kid, and so terrible at being whatever I was now.' (p. 25)

'I'm really not looking to date anyone. I know people often say that when secretly looking for a romantic partner, but I meant it. I definitely felt attracted to some people, and I liked the idea of being with someone, but the actual mechanics of it didn't much suit my talents. Like, parts of typical romantic relationships that made me anxious included 1.Kissing; 2.Having to say the right things to avoid hurt feelings; 3.Saying more wrong things while trying to apologize; 4.Being at a movie theater together and feeling obligated to hold hands even after your hands become sweaty and the sweat starts mixing together; and 5.The part where they say, "What are you thinking about?" And they want you to be, like, "I'm thinking about you darling," but you're actually thinking about how cows literally could not survive if it weren't for the bacteria in their guts, and how that sort of means that cows do not excist as independent life-forms, but that's not really something you can say out loud, so you're ultimately forced to choose between lying and seeming weird'. (p. 42)

'When observation fails to align with a truth, what do you trust- your senses or your truth? The Greeks didn't even have a word for blue. The color didn't exist to them. Couldn't see it without a word for it. I think about her all the time. My stomach flips when I see her. But is it love, or just something we don't have a word for?' (p. 60)

'All you can be in is love. And I wanted to tell him that even though I'd never been in love, I knew what it was like to be in a feeling, to be not just surrounded by it but also permeated by it, the way my grandmother talked about God being everywhere.' (p. 150)

'I like short poems with weird rhyme schemes, because that's what life is like.'
'That's what life is like?' I was trying to get his meaning'.
'Yeah. It rhymes, but not in the way you expect' (p. 151)

'When you're on a Ferris wheel all anyone ever talks about is being on the Ferris wheel and the view from the Ferris wheel and whether the Ferris wheel is scary and how many more times it will go around. Dating is like that. Nobody who's doing it ever talks about anything else. I have no interest in dating.' (p. 162)

I can't tell you anything, but I promise you this book lives up to it's hype. Trust me. Buy this book. Read it. Love it. Cry with it. Hate it, and cherish it forever. 

All my annotations from this book: (might include (!SPOILERS!)

I never reread books.

This is my only exception in the great words of Paramore.

I don't know how Sally Rooney does it, but she makes stories and the people in them feel so alive. It feels like I know Marianne and Connel in real life.

All my annotations from this book: (!SPOILERS!)