Author Archives: lauravalimaki

by | 20.3.2015 · 17:03

The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars is written by John Green. It’s the multi-million worldwide bestseller. The book is a young adult novel and it has been published in 2012. It’s protagonists are Hazel Graze and Augustus Waters. They live in Indianapolis.

The book tells about their love story and life. Hazel and Augustus are both having cancer. They meet at the Cancer Kid Support Club and they fall in love. I think that the books backcover describes the book very well: ”The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green’s most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling and tragic business of being alive and in love”. The book tells the story from Hazel’s view. The story is really sad and touching.

The book’s main character Hazel is a sixteen year old girl, who has cancer. She has gotten a few more years to live because of her medical. Hazel lives with her parents and she’s the only child in their family. The other main character Augustus is twenty-one year old. He is having a cancer too. Augustus is attractive and smart and he fears oblivion. Augustus hadn’t been in proper school in three years and his parents used to be his two best friends. The other characters of the book are Isaac (who is Augustus’ best friend and he is also having cancer), Monica (Isaac’s girlfriend), Hazel’s parents, Augustus parents and sisters, Patrick (Support group leader), Peter Van Houten  (he is an author and Hazel and Augustus goes to Amsterdam to meet him) and Lidewij (Peter’s assistant).

My favorite part of the book is a part where they are travelling to Amsterdam, because it wasn’t so sad than many other parts of the book. The book evoked many feelings. In some parts it was funny and in other parts really sad. The atmosphere was pretty dark and sad because it focused quite much to cancer. The book was a bit difficult to read because it had some special words concerning cancer. There were also few poems which made reading a bit challenging.

I really liked the book because it was well written and had a good plot. I also liked that how the author described things. But I didn’t like that the plot revolved so much around cancer because it made the book’s atmosphere so sad and dark.

I would recommend this book to all those who like touching love stories.

2 Comments

Filed under Novels

by | 27.2.2015 · 21:47

Pretty Little Liars

Pretty Little Liars is a popular American drama series. It’s based on Sara Shepard’s novels. The series premiere was in 2010. It’s main characters are Aria Montgomery, Hanna Marin, Spencer Hastings, Emily Fields, Alison DiLaurentis and Mona Vanderwaal. The series tells about four girls life in Rosewood after their friend got missing. They start to get messages from a mysterious ”A”, who threatens to reveal the girls darkest secrets. They start to find out who is this ”A” and then becomes clear that ”A” isn’t only a one person and there’s many of them.

Aria (Lucy Hale) is an artistic girl. She has a really nice style. Aria has lived before in Iceland and then she moved back to Rosewood again. Her both parents are teachers in her school. Hanna (Ashley Benson) used to have a bulimia and she was an unpopular girl at her school, who was bullied because of her overweight. She got through the bulimia and got more confidence and took the place as the school’s most popular girl. Hanna really cares her friends a lot. She is thoughtful, brave and caring. Spencer (Troian Bellisario) is perfectionist and she always tries to please her parents. Spencer is great at school and she has good grades. Emily (Shay Mitchell) is a sporty girl. Her hobby is swimming and it’s really important for her. Emily is kind and a bit shy. Alison (Sasha Pieterse) used to be the school’s most popular girl and a leader. She knew her friends all secrets and used them to control them. She was the mean girl, who bullied, controlled and manipulated everyone. But then she got missing and everyone thought that she was dead. A bit later find out that she was still alive and she was running away from ”A”. Mona (Janel Parrish) used to be Hanna’s good friend. Allison bullied Mona and made her feel outsider. When Hanna got popular she started to pine girls as ”A”. She end up to a mental hospital but after a while she got to go back to school and she becomes one of the girls. The locale in series is Rosewood, Pennsylvania. It’s pretty ordinary American city.

When I first time watched this series I really liked it, because it had a good plot and authors. The series are exciting and mysterious. Sometimes it’s hard to stop watching these because always wants to know what happens in the next episode when it ends to an exciting point. The characters are created well and each of them has their own kind of personality. A nice bonus is that they have great styles and fine clothes. An only drawback is that the plot doesn’t go ahead. It pretty much spins around that they are trying to make clear who ”A” is. I think that features that make this series worthwhile watching are these series as an entirety, it has a good and exciting plot, the authors are good and every detail seems to be planned carefully. And I like that this series is a bit scary but not too much.  In series has also been some music from popular singers, for example Selena Gomez and Christina Perri. The series has also won many awards and it has broke viewer records.

I would recommend this to all who like girly series with a little thrill. It’s totally worth of watching.

Sources: Wikipedia

1 Comment

Filed under Films / theatre