Stories Are For Reading @storiesareforreading-blog - Tumblr Blog

I think about how much depends on a best friend. When you wake up in the morning you swing your legs out of the bed and you put your feet on the ground and you stand up. You don't scoot to the edge of the bed and look down to make sure the floor is there. The floor is always there. Until it's not.

Will Grayson Will Grayson, Will Grayson John Green

Young adult fiction = even if it's a ghost story, it's still about being a teenager.

Case in point: Richard Peck's, "The Most Important Night of Melanie's Life," in which Melanie herself comments:

"Mother, if you keep prying into my private life, I may have to go on drugs or something. Do I have to account to you for every minute? I'm fourteen."

And though the story comes with a built-in ghost/love story within what becomes a ghost/love story, what sticks out is still age. What it's like to be a teenager. The young boys in the story, one seven-year-old and twin nine-year-olds recognize the invincibility of being a teenager:

Ben's hands were ice cold, but at sixteen you probably don't even need to wear gloves.

When I was nine, I thought for sure sixteen year old girls would not have to sleep, and though I was close in my prediciton, when sixteen came, I found that once in a while, I did actually need sleep.

Grandma sighed a lot and wore Keds.

Amidst stacks of Young Adult novels, I’ve decided to squeeze in at least a few other forms of fiction, one of which is a short anthology of short stories by my favorite author (since 6th grade): Richard Peck. The anthology is titled Past Perfect, Present Tense, which I found clever in itself, and is divided into three thematic sections: Past, Supernatural, and Present (i.e. historical, ghost stories, and contemporary).

Through each Peck attempts to pack the full punch of a good story within the confines of a “short story” structure. One of the things that really worked for me in reading these stories was the precise descriptors. The above quote, “Grandma sighed a lot and wore Keds,” is the only descriptor we get about that particular character in the story, “Girl in the Window.” Yet it was effective enough for me to get that vision in my head of exactly what Grandma was like and never question it further for the rest of the story.

#richard peck #past perfect present tense #young adult fiction #short stories #lit #characterization #read 100 #grandma #keds #shoes #a year down under

My storiesareforreading reading is going quite a bit slower due to having a big-kid job which will last for the next 5 weeks (aka the rest of the school year). Today I spent FIVE hours reading an ACT exam aloud to a special education high schooler. And while rewarding, it is pretty mind-numbing. After a while I wasn’t even sure I was reading, but it was all coming out of my mouth nonetheless. Is that what acting feels like?

Will Grayson and will grayson are literally like three sentences away from meeting, which I only know because I cheated and read three sentences ahead into the next chapter. And the shitty part: I’m like 90% sure that Isaac stood poor will grayson up. Bad words in his direction.

I’m hoping tomorrow affords me a little more reading time.

#will grayson will grayson #john green #will grayson #lgbtq #read 100 #book challenge #book project #reading challenge #nerdfighter #nerdfighters #gay #theater #musical

I hope I get pulled over… I’d like to see how the cop responds to a black man wearing a Confederate T-shirt over a black dress.

Radar Paper Towns John Green

#paper towns #john green #radar #confederate #confederate flag #black dress #little black dress #racism #the south #read 100 #nerdfighter #nerdfighters

"Yeah, I know. I'm not saying that everything is survivable. Just that everything except the last thing is."

Quote = Q via Paper Towns

Truth = I should have thought this before I gave in and had a cigarette this morning after not having one for five months, after my car broke down on my last day of freedom before my big kid job, which starts tomorrow. I could have survived without it. And I’ll have to try harder to survive without it next time

#paper towns #john green #cigarettes #car troubles #big kid job #funemployment #lit #lit quotes #ya fiction #positive #optimistic #survive

You like someone who can't like you back because unrequited love can be survived in a way that once-requited love cannot.

Will Grayson Will Grayson, Will Grayson

#john green #david levithan #will grayson will grayson #will grayson #love #unrequited love #love quote #love quotes #nerdfighter #nerdfighters #lgbtq #lgbt

I'm still bitter about the ending of Paper Towns

So, it was really cool and all, how it came together that “paper towns” had multiple meanings, and it was all KACHAOW! here’s the tiny twist in the story that tells you why John Green would name this book Paper Towns instead of Where the Fuck Is Margo Roth Spiegelman?

However, I feel like if you didn’t find this detail jaw-droppingly gasp-worthy, that would have been the end of both the suspense and the enjoyment in the chase. Which was pretty much the case for me. I mean the road trip was pretty sweet because what person anywhere doesn’t fucking LOVE a road trip?

I appreciate the details of that: the description of the vehicle as a tiny house (I totally call the den/office area on every trip ever, and if I get screwed, I take the second bedroom), the teeth-numbing edge of lack of sleep multiplied by energy drinks to the power of feeling like you haven’t blinked (blunk?) in a week, and the invention of entertainment which would be considered 100% unentertaining in any other worldly situation (i.e. “I spy with my metaphysical eye”).

This leads me to the conclusion that I would freaking love a book about a road trip. In fact, I would love writing a book about a road trip. And maybe I will. Write one. I just took one two days ago and realized the one thing Mr. Green missed out on was capitalizing on the music factor. Music is key in contained vehicular travel. I feel like a road trip is the only legitimate excuse I’ve ever found to sing through the entire From Under the Cork Tree album by Fall Out Boy lyric by lyric, from start to finish. That’s right. I still party like it’s 2005. Unless you have the original Broadway cast recordings of Rent!, Wicked, or Avenue Q, which I will also gladly sing straight through with the accompaniment of blurring pavement and crop-less fields. Also getting lost is necessary.

In conclusion, if I wanted to read a book titled Adventures in Cartography, well I’m not so sure that there ever has been such a book, but I’d have looked for it.

#paper towns #john green #road trip #read 100 #lit #young adult fiction #YA fiction #book review #book challenge

Having a gay old time at my girlfriend's house

And I’m not even going to explain why, but she brought up the book Dancing in my Nuddy-Pants , from Louise Rennison’s series on Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging. Has anyone read either of these? Would you recommend that I do?

In other news I finished Paper Towns and hated the ending. Hated it. Maybe more on this later, due to me being indescribably frustrated and disappointed.

I started Will Grayson, Will Grayson on the train here, and so far have only met the first Will Grayson. From what I’ve seen, I’d much rather a story about Possibly Gay Jane than Will Grayson. Maybe that’s sexist. But also maybe Will Grayson is already boring me. We get it. You’re a boy. Who doesn’t want to show emotions. Welcome to 95% of humans with penises I have ever met.

#read 100 #paper towns #will grayson will grayson #dancing in my nuddy pants #books #lit

effyeahnerdfighters

storiesareforreading-blog

effyeahnerdfighters:

Painting I did of Agloe, NY.

I ripped out little tidbits from a copy of Paper Towns and put ‘em on it. I have another copy, don’t worry :D

submitted by emiess

#john green #paper towns

Ohmygosh. I had the EXACT same reaction when I read "Paper Towns" too. I was sitting there like, "Is this almost ove- No... more than a hundred pages left. Okay.." I'm not sure where exactly you are, but hang in there. They go on a road trip, which is hilarious. I don't think it's as good as "Looking For Alaska" or "An Abundence of Katherines" but I think that John Green captured his male characters well./endrandomspeil. You don't see margo until /forever/. I kid you not. I'm obviously not going to spoil it for you, but... Hang in there. XD

Thank you so much for the encouragement, and I'm glad someone else out there felt the same way! Everyone raves about Paper Towns but now that I've read four of John Green's books, I'd have to say it's my least favorite. I loved An Abundance of Katherines and Will Grayson, WIll Grayson.

((Also this blog is about two weeks behind my actual reading, as I've set it all up in the queue, and don't want to be stuck with nothing to post if I get a little behind on reading.))

Paper Town?? Of course, leave it to Margo Roth Spiegelman to escape to an actual imaginary town.

One of the biggest things when I read books is not flipping. I’ll look to see how many pages, but I don’t like looking at chapter titles or sections or parts or anything like that. This practice has definitely served me this time! When I was nearly halfway through John Green’s Paper Towns, I arrived at “Part 2” and thought, “Oh, here it comes, here’s all the action!” Turns out! There’s a Part 3. It just blasted itself into existence like BAM! I’m here. I wasn’t before, but I am now. And now you’re really going to get to the good stuff.

But I didn’t actually GET to the good stuff because I had an interview at quarter til holy god this morning. AKA 8:30 a.m. Don’t judge me, I haven’t had a reason to be awake before nine since May of last year. The interview went swimmingly, even if ridiculously fast. Next week I could be the proud assistant of a special education classroom!

Also, I bought a bunch of eggs per mom’s request that I think we will be dyeing. It makes me want to think of imaginary places to hide them.

TIME. OUT. If that town’s Omnictionary entry included the words “paper town” why didn’t it come up in the search originally??

Also also, I googled Omnictionary just to see if it actually exists, and it does. But I can’t tell if it happens to based on the book or if the book legitimately is referencing this site. I assumed it was a copyright issue swerving around Wikipedia.

Writing from the library right now, sitting in front of the young adult section is like sitting in front of a buffet of exactly the things you want to eat. But not like a good in theory, tastes like crap in your mouth buffet. This one has bacon cheeseburgers and mashed potatoes. Chyeah! Wish me luck picking my next victim!

#paper towns #john green #margo roth speigelman #paper town #lost #found #omnictionary #dftba #nerdfighter #nerdfighters #young adult fiction #read 100 #book challenge

Peeing is like a good book in that it is very, very hard to stop once you start.

Q Paper Towns John Green

#john green #paper towns #peeing #read 100 #young adult fiction #young adult #fiction #reading #book challenge #challenge #reading challenge #nerdfighter #nerdfighters #dftba

I used to be the kind of person that wrote and sketched and kept bits and pieces of creativity closed in a black fabric hardcover journal, with no intention to ever share anything. Since starting this blog project, I’ve decided I want to share a whole lot.

If I have an idea for a story, I want to tell everyone! For instance, I like trains a whole lot, and think that commuter train riding in a story would be a good place for character growth. I also think it would be an awesome place for a quirky female character who reads a page-a-day calendar straight through and tosses it at the end of the ride.

In the end, publishing any piece of fiction is essentially sharing your idea. Why not share them sooner?

#creativity #ideas #inspriation #lit #long reads #read 100 #reading #sharing #writing #inspiration

She had a full bird on the wing sewn to the crown of her hat, and she was painted up like a circus pony, so we took her to be from Chicago.

Geneva "The Electric Summer" Past Perfect, Present Tense

#richard peck #past perfect present tense #chicago #st louis #saint louis #st. louis #world fair #1920s #20s

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