Easiest Decision This Smackdown

This is for the Booktator who I know is missing the Haiku edition of the Smackdown posts:

Rotters - slow, painful,
I agree with those screaming
Please die Baby die!

Raven Boys, I still
stand by my vote for Inside
Out and Back Again

The Fault in Our Stars
engaging, enjoyable
gets my vote hands down

John Green Smashes Towards Gravediggers While Raven Boys Look On

The finals are here baby! Smack Three heads to the final with Fault in Our Stars vs Rotters vs the zombie pick of Raven Boys.  It is interesting to note that both books that have fought their way to the finals have been Odyssey winners! Long live the audiobook! Huzzah!

 (I am exclaiming  a lot in this post and I blame the following book: Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Go out and read this picture book while waiting for our final blogs...it's awesome!)

All final posts should be up by May 27th and then it's all over but the smacking, reading and planning for next year.  Enjoy the reads with your eyes or ears dear Smackers!

Inside Out and Back Again vs The Fault in Our Stars

It almost seems a bit sad that when I read through the postings for the two texts, poor little Inside Out was definitely left out in the cold.  However, this adventure in reading is about great stories, and Inside Out cannot compare to The Fault in Our Stars.  I echo what my co-readers mentioned - lack of depth in narrative and character development.  I wanted more from Lai, but it never delivered.  I am glad I was able to read the book; it was a lovely way to spend an hour on a Sunday afternoon of Spring Break.  But John Greene outwrites Lai through his humour and pathos; any book that makes me both laugh out loud and cry I have to send forward.

Onwards and upwards to the Stars.

Wright

The Fault in Our Stars vs Inside Out and Back Again

The Fault in Our Stars vs Inside Out and Back Again

As much as I appreciated “Inside Out and Back Again” (and am not surprised by the recognition it has received), the story and the manner in which it was shared, there is no question though that the novel I wish to see advance is “The Fault in Our Stars”. It is a novel that engaged me from the start, made me laugh out loud, shed some tears and reflect a bit about life. I began reading the book one morning before the start of the school day and ended up finishing it later that night at home. I have since book talked the novel to the language arts classes I teach and a few of the students have already completed reading it was well. The students have loved the book, have gone on to recommend it to their family and friends and are now interested in reading other novels by John Green. Our conversations about the book – the characters and the story – have been rich and animated.

My vote: The Fault in Our Stars
Zombie Pick: Raven Boys

 

Okay kids, cutting to the proverbial chase: I vote for The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green to move on to the next round the Smackdown. I'm pretty sure Dia is in love with this book, and I can understand that -- its a touching story; not necessarily a weeping-in-my-chair-touching, as suggested, but a sensitively crafted vignette just the same.  But in truth, 'The Fault' could have won by acclamation because I disqualified Inside Out & Back Again, by Thanhha Lai, due to suspicion of literary larceny.

Is it fair to dismiss a perfectly adequate novel simply because it so closely resembles another?  John Fogerty might think otherwise, but I think so.  Take Ru, by Kim Thuy (first published in French in 2009), the story of a Viet family who settles in Canada upon fleeing strife in their homeland.  Written in an unorthodox format, the novel follows their acclimation to North American mores for which it won a Governor Generals award.  Given that 'Inside Out' was published in 2011, and follows much the same course, in much the same way, can we really accept that Ms. Lai was simply ignorant of the existence of another successful work written about a subject in which, ostensibly, she must be vested?  I think not.

I will freely admit that 'The Fault' is not my favourite Smackdown contender (more of which anon), but it it acquits itself admirably in the company of Ms. Lai's knock-off.

As for a zombie pick, notwithstanding the fact that I haven't even finished reading it, I pick The Raven Boys.

It have excuses, none very good, for being the last blogger of the group.  In the time I’ve had to read I have been struggling with Rotters—wanted to skim to get the book finished but find that every time I did, I needed to go back and reread.  It’s too thick.  It’s too much.  The images are too horrific.  And yet—after a time, I found that they no longer had the power to knock me out.  There were too many of them—the images that seemed to pile on each other obscuring the one before.  And the point? What was he saying about art and music?  That ultimately nothing creates meaning.  I don't actually know.  Not too sure that I care.  But what a book.

Every Day hooked me at the beginning.  I could hardly wait to get back to it.  Then I got bored.  Seemed like a treatise on stereotypes but of course dealt with in a humane and enlightened manner.    

So my vote goes for Rotters.  Though I often felt overwhelmed, I was never bored.

Zombie pick—Endangered   A good story.

Inside Out and Back Again vs The Fault in Our Stars

I feel we may have some discontent on this one so I am posting my opinion and mine alone.

I really didn't think Inside Out and Back Again was all that memorable. (Bring on the Smack).  I'm not a particular fan of this type of writing so I downloaded the audiobook so I could hear the verse as the author intended it.  I was ..underwhelmed.  She has it tough in Vietnam but just as she could have pushed the story to make me really feel like the what it was like, she moved on.  She got to America, it wasn't so great but then a sponsor came along.  He was OK but the family wasn't so great.  She was made fun of in school but she persevered.  Is this a story I have heard before, yes.  Did it take me to a place where I really felt bad for her? No.  I spent the summer in Vietnam, what happened there was atrocious and I never really got this from Inside Out and Back Again.  Did it have potential, I think so.  I am honestly surprised it made it this far.

I read the Fault in Our Stars almost a year ago.  I like John Green, he speaks to me not only as an author but as a fellow nerd.  When the book began I thought,"Oh jeez - a kid-with-cancer book"...."What are you up to John Green?"  But the story was not so much about the cancer.  It was accepting who you are and sometimes,  your inevitable fate and doing what you can, with what you got.  The story summary has been told many times in previous blogs so I'll spare you the details (And the need to say, "Spoiler alert"). Unlike Inside Out and Back Again, I felt everything for these characters and when alone, where no one could see me, I cried like a baby.

The Fault in Our Stars is the only choice for me.  Zombie Pick: Raven Boys, please!