I GOT YELLOW MARGO!!

Yup it’s official, I got Yellow Margo.

So for those of you who don’t know John Green he’s an AMAZING young adult author…but don’t let that turn you away! JK Rowling is a childrens/young adult author and you’d never think of passing up Harry Potter, would you? WOULD YOU???

Okay, back on track. John Green as I said is a very talented very witty author. His newest book is Paper Towns, which I just got yesterday (damn you Amazon.com for being slow). I finished reading his second book, An Abundance of Katherines yesterday, and read his first book Looking for Alaska last month. So far Alaska is my favorite, but that’s with only being 75 pages into Paper Towns. I reserve the right to change my mind.

What do I love about John Greens books so much? Hmm…good question. It would definitely be the characters. They are so real and raw. I think teens can really connect with these characters and adults can look at them and see themselves as well. These are not clean cut people. They have issues, they have major problems sometimes, they get into trouble and they are not the innocent people adults want to imagine teenagers are. They drink. They have sex. They swear. They are, in essence real. That may shock some people. To be honest, when I first started reading Alaska I was shocked that it was listed as teen/young adult fiction because of all the drinking, swearing and sex. However, as you read the book, you find that it’s not about any of those things. It’s about these vulnerable people trying to find themselves and trying to deal with life. These books aren’t encouraging the “vices” of the characters. The “vices” are just kind of a back drop to the actual heart of each story. I would highly recommend these books for any person, and for any teen!

Another thing I like about John Green – NERDFIGHTERS!!! In 2007 John and his brother Hank decided to not have any text based communication for the whole year: no email, text messaging, instant messaging, etc. So instead they did daily video blogs to each other. Again, highly recommend you go through each video on YouTube and watch them from the beginning. After the year was over, they decided to still do weekly updates as they had developed this amazing fan base (the Nerdfighters) and many inside jokes and traditions. There are punishments, book discussions, songs and more – all with a nerdy theme!

This coming Friday my fellow Nerdfighter friend Roger and I will travel to Naperville, IL to a book signing with John Green.  It’s going to be totally jokes and made of lots of AWESOME!!  I can’t wait.  He’s also doing a signing in Chicago which I really hope I can get to.  I’m working on a secret project to give to John Green on Friday.  Hopefully I’ll have some pics to post on Monday of this weekend.

PS – I kinda secretly wanted Blue Margo…