OMG, OMG, OMG, I so love this book. I mean, I love it so much, I tried to make the image really, really big so you wouldn’t forget what it looks like.

Listen.  Here’s the other reason we read.  We want to feel stuff.  We want to experience joy and sadness and loss and triumph, without every having to leave our brown, leather couch.  We want to know what it is to be someone else, someone living life on the edge, because that’s how we understand ourselves.

I’ve been reading The Fault In Our Stars for the last couple of days and Walt thinks I’ve gone and had myself a little nervous breakdown.  One minute I’m laughing uproariously, the next minute I’m curled into a fetal position weeping uncontrollably. It’s all I can do to get any work done.

If you haven’t read this book, just go buy it.  Go on.  I’ll wait. Trust me on this one.

And a note to anyone who has ever taken a writing class with me, or submitted to the whip-cracking coaching process I provide:  There are lots of exclamation points in this text, and capitalized words that shouldn’t be.  But this is meant to be wry and ironic because the story is written from the point of view of a 16-year-old girl with terminal cancer.  She’s allowed to be wry and ironic.  You aren’t. You’re neither 16, nor terminally ill. So don’t go getting any funny ideas.