T-minus less than 24 hours until I move out...
Today was a wildly successful day, if I do say so myself. I slept through my alarm because I stayed up WAY to late reading last night. (SO worth it though) When I finally woke up I got straight to packing, I put the rest of my belongings away in those little brown and white boxes and I realized that 1. I'm really, really good at packing boxes and 2. holy crap I'm going to be living on my own tomorrow. Well, technically not on my own, own. But with a girl I've never even spent the night with before. Adventure? I think so.
And I know that I like, seriously went extremely fangirl in yesterday's blog over "Looking for Alaska" but I honestly don't think I could have read this book at a better time. And yes, you read that right, I already finished the book. And it's not because it was written poorly, as a matter of fact it's the complete opposite. His writing, and the story completely sucks you in and keeps you wanting to know more every time you pick it up to read. And this may sound weird, but I feel like I have grown as a person from reading it. I shared a few quotes from it yesterday and I am going to again today and I made sure to pick some that have absolutely NO spoilers. However, I will assure you that it is NOT a gushy love story like the back of the book makes you believe it to be, trust me.
"She turned away from me, and softly, maybe to herself, said "Jesus, I'm not going to be one of those people who sits around talking about what they're gonna do. I'm just going to do it. Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia."
"Huh?" I asked.
"You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.""
Holy poop, isn't his writing just beautiful?! And as you can see, I am obviously lacking in whatever magical gene he was blessed with having if I'm starting off my sentence with "holy poop" but whatever. When I read this part I felt like I could really relate to everything Alaska was saying. I'm always saying that I HATE JUST SAYING that I'm going to go out and do something. Word's are just words until you give them some kind of meaning. And that line "Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia." Melts.My.Heart. Fun Fact: John Green's wife actually said that to him on their first date, heck.. I would have married her too. Kidding... And then the last paragraph she says is something I will write out and put above my bed or something. So often I think we all try to use both our past, and our future as an excuse to escape.
"Those awful things are survivable, because we are as indestructible as we believe ourselves to be. When adults say, "Teenagers thing they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are."
This quote comes from one of the very last pages in the novel, which let me just warn you, the last 3 pages are the most hard hitting truths of the entire novel. Pretty much filled with words exactly like the ones above. Simply amazing. The part I have bolded is another quote that I think will forever stick with me. I don't feel like I need to say anything about it, but just read over it a few times, and then a few times more.
And then finally after the book is over and you are just sitting there in awe of what you have just read there is an interview of where they ask John like 10 questions and one of them was asking him about the metaphor of the "Great Perhaps" and about how he talked about the "radical hope" and in his answer he said this...
"And that's why I write fiction,probably. It's my attempt to keep that fragile strand of radical hope, to build a fire in the darkness."
John Green is my hero, not only because of his book. But also because of the videos he and his brother make weekly and for the amazing charity work they constantly do to decrease worldsuck. Like I said, I don't think I could have read this book at a better time. If anyone finds themselves with maybe ever 10 minutes of free time a day, I really encourage you to read this book. It leads you to really start thinking about who you are as a friend, a lover, and most importantly a person.
LIVE.LAUGH.LOVE WASTEFULLY.
No comments:
Post a Comment