Have a nice trip through our world ("The Reason I Jump" by Naoki Higashida)

Our view of autism is a limited one. We do know that there is a spectrum of autisms, we do know that each case is different in it's particulars, and we do know that there are some common characteristics. But, really, the formal knowledge is very sparse, and the carers of people with autism don't have much to go on.

If you haven't had personal experience with autism, you might be thinking of Dustin Hoffman in "Rain man" right now, or a similar popular depiction. You would be wrong. I know that my understanding of even a "well-adapted" autistic person was way off the mark. Autism is, in fact, a world completely different from our own, and our attempts at grasping it fully are doomed to fail. Naoki wrote "The Reason I Jump" when he was thirteen, and his depiction of the world of autism shatters into pieces a multitude of our common sense misconceptions. So many things we would take for granted seem to be the polar opposite of reality. This is so much the case that it is difficult to classify the book as "non-fiction". Either the book was made up by someone who is non-autistic, and is complete fiction, or we have up till now grossly underestimated and unappreciated the potential and complexity of autistic personalities.

Semper Augustus ("The Fault in our Stars" by John Green)

John Green craze has caught on wildly recently, and all the cool kids are reading his novels. Especially with the insane attention that the TFioS movie has received globally. I honestly do like John's books, but it becomes difficult to think critically of his work with all this fog of fandom-created attention and blind praise.

To be honest, my favorite John Green book (so far) is "Paper Towns". It speaks to me on a personal level, but I also think that of all the John Green books, it is the most well rounded one, as well as "the most important" one (although I don't like thinking about books as important).

I should also mention that I am a huge John (and Hank) fan. I consider myself a part of the Nerdfighter community, and I normally do my best to spread the awesomeness of the vlogbrothers as far and wide as I can. All that said, I'll start the review. My feelings about this book are generally positive, but it does have some serious shortcomings. As always, if you disagree on anything, please feel obligated to mention it in the comments. :)

"Were she better or you sicker, then the stars would not be so terribly crossed, but it is the nature of stars to cross, and never was Shakespeare more wrong than when he had Cassius note, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves.” Easy enough to say when you’re a Roman nobleman (or Shakespeare!), but there is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars." -Peter Van Houten

The book tells the story of about one year in the life of Hazel Grace - a stage IV cancer patient, who is kept alive by an experimental (and fictional) drug for an unpredictable amount of time. For the largest part of the book, she interacts romantically with a cancer survivor (and amputee), Augustus Waters. TFioS is a cancer story. It is, but it's not a regular cancer story. It gets down and dirty with the disease on several levels - there are physical, emotional and social aspects of the sickness in all their gory details, and at times it gets really difficult to read. There is no sense of the protagonist reaching up to an angelic level of consciousness, simply based she will die sooner than she "ought to" (by our standards).

Museums and carousels - ("The Catcher in the rye" by J. D. Salinger)

It would be difficult to spoil the experience of reading "The catcher in the rye", as nothing much really happens in the novel as far as events go. That being said, I will split this post into two parts, the latter one being reserved for those of you that have already read the book, as I feel there is a particular enjoyment in finding and deciphering meaning in any literary work, without being previously exposed to others' views or opinions.

As previously mentioned - not many events occur in the novel. We merely get a look at Holden's view of what had happened to him approximately one year before the moment in which he is actually telling the story. Thus, the story is entirely in first person, and reminds me somewhat of "Forrest Gump". This reminiscence is aided by the fact that Holden is a very troubled person, though not in the same way as Forrest.