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Ava wakes up confused, feeling as if she is in a slightly different world from the one she knows. There's an unfamiliar but kind woman who claims to be her mother, and people at the high school she doesn't recognize who seem to be her friends. Her confusion continues as she slowly starts to recall certain memories but she has no context for them. Ava is living in a world much like contemporary, suburban America, but her memories are of a place with extreme government control, great fear, and poverty. And in that world is a man she loves. This book is a sci-fi/romance/mystery, with the romance weighing the heaviest. It took me awhile to become engaged in the story as I found it hard to read so many pages from the viewpoint of someone who is completely confused. However, the longer I read, the more I saw the underlying messages and the heart of the story, and became more emotionally engaged. As odd as this story is, it is compelling and the characters are realistic. For grades 9 and up.
If you think reading a book about teenagers with cancer is going to be depressing or predictable, you obviously have never read a novel by John Green. The Fault In Our Stars is far from your typical cancer novel. The characters are clever, funny, well-spoken, and brutally honest about what it’s like to be a teenager with severe medical problems, facing death before reaching adulthood. Hazel meets Augustus at a cancer support group for teens, and they are instantly attracted to each other. As they become acquainted, they find that they are highly compatible as friends, both with quick wits, and they share an obsession with a rather obscure author. Augustus maintains a highly optimistic view of life, and is hugely supportive of not only Hazel, but of their friend Issac, who is going to lose his sight, but not his life, to cancer. Green mines everything in this novel—“Cancer Perks” like getting free trips because you’re sick, how erratically Augustus drives with his prosthetic right leg, how hard it is on the parents of all of these teens. About two-thirds through the book, I hit a point where I couldn’t stop crying, but I also could not stop reading, and stayed up much too late to finish this wonderful book. However, despite crying, this book is not depressing so much as affirming of love and life and what is truly important in this world. Some underage drinking and sex, but not graphic. Highly recommended for grades 9 and up.
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