[ SECRET POST #2804 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2804 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 064 secrets from Secret Submission Post #401.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 2 - unrelated .gifs ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[sabotabby]

Two reasons—one personal, one professional. The latter is easier to explain, so that's first.

I'm a teacher, and at least for the last six years at the school where I taught, most of my kids were not interested in reading. They're a mainly immigrant population where English isn't spoken in the home, many are from underprivileged backgrounds, and unless you forced them to read/basically read aloud to them, they wouldn't touch a book. (Exception: One year the girls got really into Twilight. Sigh.)

This past year, TFIOS started circulating amongst the population. At first I rolled my eyes because cancer book about teenagers—obviously it's going to be cheesy and terribly written and maudlin. But they were all reading it—boys, girls, academic, struggling, rich, poor—everyone. Finally one of my students (queer, Muslim, bipolar, suicidal, learning disabled, extremely bright) loaned me the book, telling me that Gus was his ideal man and that he hoped I loved the book as much as he did. And I couldn't put it down. And I bawled. And this boy and I, and the other kids who had read it, we all bonded and for months, our topic of conversation was this book, and other books like it, and how many boxes of Kleenex we were going to bring to the movie.

The personal reason is that I watched my step-dad die a prolonged and horrible death from cancer, leaving my mother a distraught wreck, and I almost died from a non-cancerous but aggressive tumour. And the book, while sketchy on medical accuracy, really does get what it's like to be dying too early, painfully, and without dignity, on an emotional level. The awkward things that non-dying people say, the way your life and your expectations for your life contract and diminish. The horrible, horrible inspirational slogans and literature. All of it.

I understand people's criticisms of it, and I even agree with some of them, but I also think a lot of those people mocking it haven't really had to deal with loss yet. (The criticisms from people who have are more valid, but that's not 99% of what I'm seeing.) Or are in the position to watch non-readers discover a love of reading. It just means a lot to me, sentimental or not.

[lunabee34]

I'm happy to see a positive review of the book in the thread. I really enjoyed it, and I'm glad your students were able to connect to the book and learn to love other books through it.

I think I'm getting weary of the implication that writing about anything sad is automatically schmaltzy or overwrought. Just because something makes you cry doesn't mean it's not a good story, to bastardize what someone said downthread.

[sabotabby]

Agreed. I have a pretty low tolerance for sad-for-sad's-sake, and I honestly don't think TFIOS was that.

[brooms]

i haven't read this book, but i'd like to thank you for this detailed reply.

[sabotabby]

Oh, you're welcome.

[(Anonymous)]

♥

[sabotabby]

:)

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly. I read it a few months after my dad was diagnosed with cancer, which had happened about a week after my grandmother had passed away (on my birthday, of all days) and basically I was in a really terrible place. I couldn't rely on family for support because everyone was so caught up in their own grief that they turned it into a gross contest of "who has it worst" and, even if that hadn't happened, their approach to death was way too childish for me to have any patience with it.

ANYWAY. This book was EXACTLY what I needed. It told me that I wasn't alone in feeling like this concept of "Heaven" where people go when they die is a sham and in thinking that people's words of comfort were absolutely useless. Basically, it did what I'd been needing someone to do for a long time, which was tell me that my feelings were valid even if they weren't what everyone else was feeling, and I will always, ALWAYS be grateful to John Green for that.

I agree that most of the criticism comes from people that weren't in a position where the book resonated really that strongly with them, and that is why I almost can't handle it, because I feel it's like the world at large telling me I was an idiot to find a great deal of comfort in such a "terrible" book.

[sabotabby]

My sympathies, anon. One death or life-threatening illness is more than enough to deal with.

Every cancer book I've read has some sort of trite message, usually religious. I'm not religious, nor is/was my family, and yeah, I felt really validated by it. At any rate, you're not an idiot, and books don't need to be Great Literature to be meaningful.

[(Anonymous)]

> I understand people's criticisms of it, and I even agree with some of them, but I also think a lot of those people mocking it haven't really had to deal with loss yet.

You can dislike it without having this experience. I've lost several people due to random illnesses/accidents (including a parent when I was eight) and I don't like this book (and yes, I've read it - I haven't seen the film).

I really just wanted to comment to challenge this notion because "loss" is not a small thing that only a few experience and that somehow if you dislike the book it indicates you've never experienced loss.

[sabotabby]

I didn't say it was. I said that a lot of the criticisms I've seen are from people who haven't had experiences with mortality, and are mocking the cheesy lines or criticizing John Green as a writer/person/internet presence. (Which, by all means people are free to do! And I find some of the former funny and the latter legit.) I've also seen criticism from a thyroid cancer patient who disliked its lack of realism, which is an experience I haven't had and can't speak to.

However, it resonated with my own experiences of loss and facing death, and many other people's. No one is saying that anyone has to like it for any reason.