The Fault in Our Stars by John Green - review

This is a gripping and captivating novel that I enjoyed reading very much. The characters were believable and interesting, and I found there was a lot of symbolism and depth in the book too, which accounted for the sadness of it. The poems that Hazel recited were amusing as well.

However, despite how much I liked the book, there was one thing that bugged me as I read: the subject matter of it. To me, glamorizing illness and sensationalizing cancer is even more heartbreaking than the sadness that hangs over the book. At my school, you can hear people all day every day yelling things like, 'Have you seen The Fault in Our Stars yet? Did you cry? I cried!' and, 'I'm trying to draw a cannula but it just won't work.' And also, 'I have to find a cannula for sale so I can dress up as Hazel for Halloween.'

Why is this so distressing? you ask. What about the poor people who actually have cancer? If they saw somebody dressed up with a cannula, they would think, 'Well, they can take that off at any point – but I can't.' Also, I despise the way The Fault in Our Stars has been made into an acronym. There is even a #TFIOS. It's like saying, #cancer. It is just like news corporations sensationalizing news stories.

One day, this book will go out of fashion and so will cancer. How depressing for people with cancer. The book has been made trendy by hashtags and Twitter accounts.

Even though I disliked the subject of the book, I would recommend it to anybody who is sensible enough to realize that cancer and illness is not a fashion.

• Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop

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Looking at the Stars by Jo Cotterill - review

Looking at the Stars is one of the best, if not the BEST book I have ever read. With great descriptions and a gripping plot, I think it should win an award - my highest compliments to the author!

This book is all about a thirteen year old girl called Amima and her
imagination. She lives in a country (which I guessed was somewhere in the Middle-East due to the traditions spoken about in the book) that has a very strict government, meaning that one step out of line equals big trouble. But when her brother joins a secret underground movement he brings trouble to the whole family. The brutality of government officials means that their mother decides that it is best for her and what is left of her family to leave Tala for a hopefully better life. At the checkpoint, newly-installed government laws mean that not all of the family can make it through, so Amima and her sister must continue their journey alone. Once they gain entry to the only refugee camp in the country they meet Aron, his brother Leon and their mother, who have been through similar experiences. But Amima only has one thing on her mind: reuniting her family. She begins to tell her stories and slowly she brings the whole camp together.

I love this book, particularly the characters; my favourite one would have to be the main character Amima. She speaks her mind and is bold and imaginitive. I particularly like the way her character develops and how she grows to be much more compassionate towards her sister and Aron in particular!

The imagery and description is something I would also like to compliment the author on; I always knew the scene and what was going on, which in my opinion is quite hard when you are writing about something like this.

In conclusion, I think that Jo Cotterill is an amazing author and I shall be very upset if there is no sequel; when there is, I shall be first in line to buy it!

Thank you very much for this book, I seriously do mean it when I say that it is one of the best that I have ever read!!!!!

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Writers are stars of the story in four new bios

Four major novelists —Kurt Vonnegut, Virginia Woolf, Leo Tolstoy and Charles Dickens— are the stars of the story in new biographies. USA TODAY takes a look.

And So It Goes:

Kurt Vonnegut: A Life

By Charles Shields

Henry Holt, 513 pp., $30

* * * out of four

Having tackled the reclusive Harper Lee in Mockingbird, his first major biography, Charles Shields now takes on Kurt Vonnegut, who died in 2007 at age 84. The result is an engaging, surprising and empathetic page-turner that will make you want to reread Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. Like Joseph Heller and J.D Salinger, Vonnegut was shaped as a man and as a writer by serving in World War II. Shields explores that experience but also probes Vonnegut's Midwestern roots. The descendant of once-wealthy German-Americans who built Indianapolis, Vonnegut grew up overshadowed by brilliant older brother Bernard, a top scientist. The upside was Vonnegut's exposure to science and machines, which inspired his fascination with how technology affects humans. Though he became the counterculture's Mark Twain, fame, money and his difficult second marriage — to Manhattan photographer Jill Krementz— left Vonnegut lonely and often alienated from friends and family. — Deirdre Donahue

Virginia Woolf

By Alexandra Harris

Thames & Hudson, 170 pp., $24.95

* * *½ out of four

In her introduction to Virginia Woolf, young English scholar Alexandra Harris presents her lively little volume as a "first port of call for those new to" the formidable British novelist (To the Lighthouse). And she hopes to set off "fresh ideas" in those already passionate about Woolf. She accomplishes both in this wonderfully nimble book, which is easily accessible to newcomers and surprisingly enriching for the acolyte. Deftly weaving biography with astute readings of Woolf's fiction, Harris paints a perceptive portrait of the writer (who famously drowned herself in 1941 at age 59) as a romantic who embraced life. Exhibit A: Harris' convincing case for Woolf's underappreciated wit and humor as a novelist. Afraid of Virginia Woolf? You won't be after reading Harris's warm, charming study. — Jocelyn McClurg

Tolstoy: A Russian Life

By Rosamund Bartlett

Houghton Mifflin, 454 pp., $35

* * *½ out of four

Rosamund Bartlett, a British expert on Russia and Chekhov, distinguishes her biography of the great author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina with material unfrozen after the U.S.S.R.'s dissolution. Titanic Tolstoy (1828-1910) becomes, in her telling, human. The reckless aristocrat, gambler, hunter, womanizer and soldier grew to be a vegetarian and advocate for the poor and illiterate. He gave away money, property, even the copyright to his oeuvre, and adopted a Christian philosophy of non-violence that inspired Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Then he fled the Orthodox faith, which — in his final decade — excommunicated him. Bartlett dwells on his extravagant fathering of 13 children and details how he neglected them. This literary lion loved his land, she tells us, but loathed its government. Bartlett portrays Tolstoy, above all, as the epitome of Russia. — Jerelle Kraus

Charles Dickens: A Life

By Claire Tomalin

Penguin Press, 527 pp., $36

* * * out of four

The life and works of Charles Dickens (1812-70) continues to fascinate other writers. Claire Tomalin, a British biographer of Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy and Dickens' mistress, actress Nelly Ternan, does better on Dickens' complex life, filled with contradictions, than on his literary imagination, which created epic novels including Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby, delivered in monthly installments. As a reporter, then novelist, Dickens, who went to work at 12, "saw the world more vividly than other people, and reacted to what he saw with laughter, horror, indignation — and sometimes sobs," Tomalin writes. Parts of her biography should provoke those same reactions in readers. — Bob Minzesheimer

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