/lit/ - Literature

He's a jew.

He writes poorly.
Just link them to any Green thread around here.

>>7772876
I recon not a whole lot of people on lit have actually read him. Why would you read Green when you have Dostoyevsky, Plato, Camus, etc?

>>7772889
This exactly

>>7772876
Considering your writing skills, John Green seems more your speed.

>>7772876
This sounds like bullshit but I'm always down to hate on a hack so let's do this

I haven't actually read any JG so this is all hatred by hearsay, take w/ salt

But the way he made his teenage romance in TFIOS is just disgusting. Double teenagers in love but the twist is -get this- they BOTH HAVE CANCER, WOW, SO DEEP, SUCH VICTIM

The laziest writing ever. Couldn't even give them plausibly different diseases, just lazy cancer copy paste.

He fucked up his title as well, if you're quoting from shakespeare to make your title you should leave it as is, instead of trying to improve on the bard's prose. The original quote is as follows "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings" and implies that the course of our lives is determined not by fate, or the procession of heavenly bodies, but by the will and action of men.

John fucks this up by drowning his characters in fate and turning them into limp victims, completely missing the point.

Also his female cancer love interest reacts with vitriol to anyone who expresses sympathy towards her and it sounds extremely tired and cliche. "fuck your pity" is an edgy exciting thing to write, but it's shitty and makes me dislike the character, because sympathy is not necessarily pity, she's just being a cunt.

>>7772889
How do you know he is worse than those authors if you havent read him?

>>7772913
my patrician sense tingles

>>7772876

If you can't muster up any decent arguments for such an easy "debate", AND you write like shit, then maybe your sense of superiority towards John Green fans is unwarranted.

>>7772928
I did never say that I'am better than him.I just thought that there are a lot better options than him.

>>7772938
then make that your argument, dummy

>>7772876
It's a shame that bell saved your ass. You're an idiot and it's always fun to watch someone making a fool of himself. I hope someone from your class lurks here. This is pathetic.

He's a cuck.

Thank me later.

I actually did read the Fault in our Stars OP. It is fucking terrible. The characters are pretentious cunts that don't act like normal teenagers.
>the cigarette is a metaphor

>>7772876
You don't. John Green is a cornerstone of the Western Canon.

these john green advertisements have got to stop, i'm sorry, i can no longer participate in this board until the paid content is labeled as such and users are allowed to filter it, good day

>letting /lit/ tell you what to think

John Green is shit but you are a cunt and a dumbass OP.

>>7772990
>implying you don't like the Elliot Rodgers forced meme and John Green/ Booktuber forced advertising

>I mean I haven't published a novel for three and a half years, so....yeah.

I feel this way all the time. People often use the phrase "literally the worst" colloquially, but I have on countless occasions felt that I am literally the worst writer on Earth, and that I am a complete fraud. I feel like a fraud all the time, and I still don't feel like I know how to write a novel, and at this point I doubt I ever will.

The only way through it for me is to take pleasure in the process of writing, or to find value in it. Even when I suck. Even when there's no way anything I'm writing will ever see the light of day. The act of trying to write for an audience must feel valuable in and of itself, or else I am doomed.

It's incredibly fucking pathetic when someone can't argue for their own opinion and needs to rely on someone else to argue for them. That happens so often on 4chan where someone adopts a meme opinion then realizes they actually have nothing to say about it. Disgusting.

>Not a single argument in the thread except "I don't like him"

Step up your game /lit/

>>7772876
he relies on drama and pretentious writing to lure the reader to think he is reading something *deep* when in reality it is something meaningless and stupid at times

>>7773043
>>7773048
He's a fucking Children's writer. He writes for preteen girls. I don't read him. Of the excerpts I've seen, he's pretty much trash but if you are an 11 yr. old who's never read a book then you might like him.

>>7772900
>John fucks this up by drowning his characters in fate
That's kind of interesting. Didn't even think of that

>>7773057
You are still not articulating why he's bad. Come on, I'm not fucking defending Green, but if /lit/ is such a patrician board, it should be able to critique books beyond "He writes bad" or "I'm not part of the target audience".

>>7773048
hey buddy i know reading is hard but my post upthread raised several arguments
>>7772900

Since writing the post i have at least taken the time to read the wiki page on the book, and withdraw my criticism of the lazy cancer copy paste. JG gets around this by having them meet at a cancer support group, obviously ripe ground for romance.

In place of my withdrawn point I raise another. The idea of terminal cancer patients breeding is ethically unsettling

>>7772954
t. John Green enthusiast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt5_rSYQgzM

Here's a negative review of TFIOS.

I don't mind if his writing is bad, but like Taylor Swift and other idols of preteen to early adulthood females, he propagates a puritan, self-empowering naivety to his readers encouraging them to act like the characters in his books who exist in a bullshit world of bullshit romanticism. It teaches them to expect a fake reality and they act as if people must treat them like that. Hell, even GR's characters are more based in reality than his. I just avoid girls who enjoy his books - which yes, is a large number - largely because if they can take him seriously then they're not worth anything more than a drunken lay (which, ironically, his writing discourages them from doing).

You could always show her these dubs

Why don't you read his books and see for yourself? Should become obvious

>>7773079
See>>7772900

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

Bitch if you fall in love with someone over the course of them reading, that's not falling in love slowly.

>>7773117
this review is dogshit, and i had heavy bias going into it

“You say you’re not special because the world doesn’t know about you, but that’s an insult to me. I know about you.”

holy shit, are you condescending to assume that you are equivalent to the world to me? Are you unwilling to just accept that even though we're in love and have cancer and all this awesome stuff that somehow makes us tragically beautiful, in the end our story will be drowned out by the literal infinities of human suffering that have transpired over the millienia and even now are rolling through the world like a juggernaut, unstopped - nay, slickered - with the bloody bodies of its victims?

Go fuck yourself, kid.

>>7773152
Do you honestly think that's a good critique? You didn't even fucking read the book
This board is fucking pathetic

>>7773125
Haven't read anything by Green, but this guy must have the right answer, because these kind of books have success with the masses today.

>>7772876
Fuck off John

ITT: /lit/ exposes itself as incapable of forming opinions and seeks to indoctrinate memes

>>7773203
come on man, don't make us actually read this book. the idea that you can't judge a book by its cover is retarded. Of course you can. It could be the best writing inside ever put to page, but if the subject matter, intent, or presentation are insulting, then these are sufficient grounds to dislike any text.

I'd dislike a bible if it was presented to me with a picture of a dick on the cover.

>>7773185
It would be more pathetic to read the book, mon frere. So I'll leave that task to others better suited to the chore, like bigmouth faggot OP

>>7772876
alongside Gene Wolfe, John Green is one of the greatest authors of the last 500 years. None compare to him other than big papa Wolfe, and your ignorance and meme vision blinds you to an experience unlike any other on this fucking planet. Go read his work, and you'll see why you're such a fucking pleb, we're here to laugh at people like you.

The whole shit about putting a cigarette in his mouth and not smoking gave me second hand canver

>>7773224
hard meme

I'll repost what I wrote the last time this thread popped up.

The whole YA genre is engineered by the publishing industry to cash in on a thriving demographic who suddenly have a lot of money and get to make their own consumer choices.

>b-b-but he allows teenagers to see different ideas and helps them to cope with their struggling identities

Sure, but in the shallowest way possible. Instead of dealing with actual problems he just throws in cancer and suicide, and makes already edgy teenagers even deep*edgier. He sells kids what they want, which is to feel oppressed, lacking in what they feel the world owes them, and deeply misunderstood. Green just spews out this dreamy, paper-thin tripe which is then bought by the movie business to cash in on a vulnerable audience.

Green has no respect for either suicide or cancer. Cancer in Green is quirky, because his cancer is not the kind that makes you shit blood and throw up every time you eat. It's cancer for cheap effect. Green's sob-fest about cancer framed in this "we're so deep and quirky" mindset means that whatever sentiment his story ever had is immediately devalued as soon as he set one of his bony fingers to the keyboard.

In fact, having a "genre" for young adult lit is part of the problem to begin with. To look at literature through the lens of "genre" is miguided when one should instead look at it in terms of originality and sincerity. There are books written about teenagers that are good, but looking for some central theme running through them all is pointless. Trying to extrapolate a whole genre from this is even more pointless, and it exists only to cater to a specific market demographic. Confining oneself to a YA "genre" is precisely that: to confine oneself, in this case to a specific emotional or intellectual state that isn't developed yet.

>>7772876
I think you got enough time to read it yourself and form your own opinion.

>>7773254
Your post makes me appreciate Catcher in the Rye even more

>>7773241
more bullshit. you're probably a failed and whiny writer and a failed critical reader and you come here to eke out your frustrations on anyone who you deem inferior. you're a sham, and a sack of shit. John Green is a modern day genius. There's no argument about it. His works will be spoken of and studied for thousands of years to come. It is an inevitability that people will come out in droves to rise against this monument of human genius, and you betray yourself as one of the confederacy of dunces.

>>7773287
6/10 slightly above average bait, step up your game

>>7773287

Dank trolling, you went a little overboard with the "studied for thousands of years to come" part though.

I'll give you a 6 / 10, solid effort.

>>7773295
the more you post, the more clear what a blind moron you truly are. you'll never think anything that someone else hasn't told you to.

it's appalling, really, when true love and passion is taken for trolling these days. I hope some of you realize how fucking blind you've been.

>>7772900
Never thought I'd defend John Green, but
>he completely misses the point

That IS the point. The sentiment of the Shakespeare like is that there is no one to blame our tragedy on but ourselves, but, by having his lovers separated by cancer (a disease they both got supposedly because of genetics/randomness/whatever out of their control) he is suggesting that, in this instance, the fault DOES lie in the stars. The characters didn't do anything to be tragically separated, it was simply fate.

>TL;DR you missed the point.

>>7773314
>recognizing the bait
>taking it anyway

>>7773323
I really don't think it was b8, but if so, bravo ya got me

>>7773331
If it's too stupid to be plausible, it's bait.

>>7773314
And I'm saying that's fucking lame, and he would have been better off by far sticking with shakespeare's thrust. The struggle is the interesting thing.

Everyone dies eventually, that fate is inescapable. It's present even in the shakespearean narrative. John's story sucks because it just entirely removes a vital human element. His characters are just waiting to die.

>>7773314
so it's him going to shakespeare and saying "NUH UHH, VICTIM BLAMING NOT ALLOWED SAFE SPACE SAFE SPACE" and you believe this is good?

I read Looking for Alaska when I was 16 or 17 and I liked it at the time but when John Green suddenly became really popular I went back to it and I literally couldn't get back into it. It caters to that young adult mentality of 'I'm practically an legal adult now, that means I understand how the world works except I also want unattainable romantic adventures and I want to be all contemplative and philosophical but don't know how little real world knowledge I have to back it up.'

Alaska's a two-dimensional manic pixie dream girl. She has no personality beyond being a moody, unpredictable teenager whose mum is dead, which supposedly gives the reader a reason to feel sympathetic towards her ad explains her erratic 'tortured soul' behaviour. Then you've got Miles, who's just a basic awkward quiet teenage boy. 'Ooh Alaska's so crazy and outgoing, unlike me.' He writes characters that appeal to angsty teenagers who have this whole future-nostalgia mentality. They're constantly being told that the teenage/young adult years are the best of your life so they want everything to be dramatic and romantic and philosophical and to have crazy adventures that they'll look back on when they're older. But all they know about the future and what their lives will be like come from books or TV and film, so their idea of life is idealised and without any real substance, so John Green's characters appeal to them because they're all idealised and not weighted-out.

His historical revisionism is pig disgusting

>>7772876
He's Nicholas Sparks for teenagers.

>>7773371
correct, sorta. he's woefully legitimately pretentious, also.
>>7773345
you're so dumb

>>7773359
His works are actually involved pirouettic critiques of both future-nostalgia and idealizations like the 'manic pixie dream girl.' vz. 'Abundance' and 'Paper.'

His quirky style isn't what makes his writing bad. Its how he writes in general. Its obvious to anyone who has read their share of literature

>"Why are breakfast foods breakfast foods?" I asked them. "Like, why don't we have curry for breakfast food?"
>"Hazel, eat."
>"But why?" I asked. "I mean, seriously: How did scrambled eggs get stuck in with breakfast exclusivity? You can put bacon on a sandwich without anyone freaking out. But the moment your sandwich has an eggs, boom, it's a breakfast sandwich."
>Dad answered with his mouth full. "When you come back, we'll have breakfast for dinner. Deal?"
>"I don't want to have 'breakfast for dinner,'" I answered, crossing knife and fork over my mostly full plate. "I want to have scrambled eggs for dinner without this ridiculous construction that scrambled eggs-inclusive meal is breakfast even when it occurs at dinnertime."
>"You've gotta pick your battles in this world, Hazel," my mom said. "But if this is the issue you want to champion, we stand behind you."
>"Quite a bit behind you," my dad added, and Mom laughed.
>Anyway, I knew it was stupid, but I felt kind of bad for scrambled eggs.

>When adults say, "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.

>>7773452

No way. No fucking way.

>The Odyssey is like so dumb. Odysseus has sex with like a ton of girls but he's going to kill Penelope if she's not faithful? That's not very feminist, Ody. You got some learnin' to do.

>Now for today's thought bubble: a little tiny Lysistrata figurine. Oh Homer, we can't possibly hold you accountable for not being a feminist in ancient Greece, after all, it's not like feminism existed back then, oh wait, it totally did, you misogynist pig.

>Back to the Odyssey: is Penelope the true hero of the story? Yes. Yes she is. That's all we have time for today, be sure to like and subscribe and buy tickets to my new movie: The Da Vinci Code with Teenagers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS4jk5kavy4&t=7m15s

>>7773464
lord.

>>7772889
>Camus
when will this reddit meme die?

camus is trash and you should feel bad for enjoying him.

>>7773473
Nice b8 I r8 8/8

>>7773476
*slow claps*
*steps out of the shadows*
Heh... not bad, kid. Not bad at all. Your meme, I mean. It's not bad. A good first attempt. It's plenty dank... I can tell it's got some thought behind it... lots of quotable material...
But memeing isn't all sunshine and rainbows, kid. You're skilled... that much I can tell. But do you have what it takes to be a Memester? To join those esteemed meme ranks? To call yourself a member of the Ruseman's Corps?
Memeing takes talent, that much is true. But more than that it takes heart. The world-class Memesters - I mean the big guys, like Johnny Hammersticks and Billy Kuahana - they're out there day and night, burning the midnight meme-oil, working tirelessly to craft that next big meme.
And you know what, kid? 99 times out of a hundred, that new meme fails. Someone dismisses it as bait, or says it's "tryhard," or ignores it as they copy/paste the latest shitpost copypasta dreamt up by those sorry excuses for cut-rate memers over at reddit. The Meme Game is rough, kid, and I don't just mean the one you just lost :^). It's a rough business, and for every artisan meme you craft in your meme bakery, some cocksucker at 9gag has a picture of a duck or some shit that a million different Johnny No-Names will attach a milion different captions to.
Chin up, kid. Don't get all mopey on me. You've got skill. You've got talent. You just need to show your drive.

See you on the boards...

>>7773473
>you should feel bad
>>>/reddit/

>>7773452
So John Greens whole shtick is that he's jealous of youth?

>>7773464

>Oh Homer, we can't possibly hold you accountable for not being a feminist in ancient Greece, after all, it's not like feminism existed back then, oh wait, it totally did, you misogynist pig.

I'm not a /pol/fag not even a gamergatefag but goddamn this makes me fucking mad all the same.

>>7772876
If you can't levy any actual arguments beyond /lit/ memes then maybe you need to re-assess why you like/dislike the things you do

This could be an ideology shattering revelation for you OP, don't waste it

>>7773452
Jesus, talk about YA baiting

>running to the internet to help you hate a book you haven't even read because it's popular
kill yourself

>>7773484
John Green's sthick is he was a massive loser in high school so now he's 40 and desperately seeks the approval of high schoolers who incidentally are the only people dumb enough to stomach his self-congratulatory pretentious crap.

>>7773486
He didnt say that verbatim, but he might as well. Like, shit, nigger, do you have to hold one of the greatest works of literature to the lens of 3rd wave feminism in a bid to devalue its worth?

>>7773452
JESUS

that is some of the most vapid nigh formulaic pandering I have ever seen

>>7773487
Anon it's too late, this thread is about memes, not OP's self improvement. It's probably better this way.

>>7772876
Pondering to teenage girls, which are the stupidest of god's creatures. There, I basically wrote your entire presentation.

>>7773203
>>7773212
Stop shilling this awful book.
>>7773185
>You didn't say why you didn't like it!!
>That's a dumb review but I won't say why I don't like it!

>>7773537
>Pondering

>>7773557
oopsie xD

>>7773254
The argument against Cancer could also be applied to the use of Consumption in the Classics.

>>7772876
That was quite rude of you, OP. It will be deserved when the teacher embarasses you in front of the class for the judgemental pseud that you are.

Or at least it would if any of this had actually happened.

>>7773568

nigger please.

>>7773359
>When it got popular, I couldn't get back into it

>>7773464
Holy Shite.

>>7772876
So, I've actually read TFIOS because I was a young idiot who bought into the early hype reviews and didn't know anything about this motherfucker. Here's the thing: he's the stereotype of the pseudoliberal manchild. He appeals so much to teenagers because his own understanding of history and art is juvenile as fuck; he simplifies everything to the point of obliterating its meaning, but of course the plebs love that, for it gives them a whiff of intellectual life which, they feel, elevates them above the level of Twilight/Grey readers. This intellectualism is completely devoid of complexity or ambiguity, of course, but his readers know nothing of complexity or ambiguity, so they ignore this and call us elitists if we point it out. To a Green reader, noticing faults in his writing is nitpicking, because details don't matter, only the vague sense that he's talking about "intelligent stuff".

Take his use of the concept of "hamartia" in the novel, for example. I'm not going to reach for the thing so I can quote it verbatim, but basically the protagonist couple have this conversation about how they're perfect, but have this "fatal flaw" in them, the cancer, which, because they're sooo fucking well read, they instantly equate to classical hamartia. But that's all the depth you get: "hamartia = fatal flaw". And that's not even half of the real story, is it?: hamartia is a flaw in decision-making, fell into by the character because of lack of understanding, lack of necessary information, or hubris. It's not a thunderbolt from the sky, like cancer is, but rather a failure to fully grasp the extent of our actions before it's too late. Take into account that Green readers have overwhelmingly never heard of hamartia before reading TFIOS, and you have a recipe for a clusterfuck. Just look at >>7773464 , for fuck's sake. Just look at the Cheerios quote. He is an intellectual authority for millions of teenagers, and he's a bloody idiot, or perhaps the pied piper leading them into the river to drown.

I don't even care if he's a bad "author", there's millions of those, and frankly his writing doesn't stand out as terrible when compared to his peers'. What I care about is that he's a bad presence. He makes a living out of influencing naive kids, and instead of planting the seed of critical thought in them he's making them have rushed, flawed and anachronistic interpretations of historical processes and complicated ideas, as well as indoctrinating them into being 21st-century pseudo-leftist drones, which, let's be honest, is just a fashionable way of religion.

>tl;dr: Not only is John Green a simpleton, but, if all the evils of the current SJW movement could be found in the space of a grimy warehouse, he'd be the guy at the door, baiting kids with colored lollipops.

>>7773632
You read like someone who spent most of their time reading YA

>>7773641
You read like someone who spent most of their time reading shitposts

>>7773641
only the ones who have escaped have the true understanding

>>7773464
That's it OP, show your teacher this video. This man clearly doesn't know shit about literature

>>7773641
Sorry, no. English is not my first tongue, so that might be it. Never even read Harry Potter. I also never knew YA as we know it was a thing before I read this book.

Also, go fuck yourself.

>>7773452
I've never seen such a large text being used to assert absolutely nothing.

a few points points you can use :

1) André Gide said in 1923 : "With beautiful emotions one makes bad literature", and indeed John Green's books rely extensively on the use of pathos (The fault in our starts) and feeling sin general (love, mourning in Looking for Alaska). This appears largely as a device used to make the text appealing, this device is used by many authors but usually it it used as a means to end, to convey a stronger message but in Green's case (same problem with many "commercial authors") there is no stronger message, those devices are their own end. There is no message involved, the books seem to only revolve around arousing the reader's pity. He hardly ever (or never) makes statements.

2) Cioran said that sometimes he liked to "read as a concierge, identifying to the characters". Green targets a young adult public and has ... young adult characters who's e troubles are very similar to those of the reader, the general hides behind the particular in his stories and not in a very subtile way. The love stories, stories of being deceived or disappointed , stories of secrets, of emotional pain in his books ( Looking for alaska is a good example of this) are those that a young adult reader can easily identify with. It does not seem to go beyond that.

3) His style. One may argue that great literature is the one that makes a break with the past and establishes new literary codes. green's style is nothing particular, it alternates between descriptions and actions in a very traditional way that can be traced back to the XIXth century... Also that is to say there is no meta textuality (no statements about writing or the novel itself). Critics often said (Thomas pave, L'art du roman for example, dont know if translated in english but pretty popular here in france) that every novel is a statement about novel themselves as the noel is a very non-limited genre, every novel establishes a way of writing that is able to be established a s a model. Green only follows previous models...

But a few goods points can be found nevertheless :

1) he never meant to make great literature , he reaches perfectly his goal which is to appeal to a young public and it's very good as it introduces young adults to reading by offering stories they can relate to. They are then free to go on and read other works. In this manner there doesn't seem to be major errors in his work , everything is relevant according to his goal.

2) the use of symbolism is very interesting in his books, in Looking for alaska, the descriptions are not there just to be there and create a feeling of realism. They have a symbolic function but also a narrative one. For example the pile of books in Alaska's room hols both these functions : it shows her want to be someone else, to live a full life, like Mme Bovary she is reading novels to escape, this is implied and the rest of the novel will show that indeed she wanted to escape from a reality not meant for her. and comment too long

>>7773722
thanks :3
take this pepe as appreciation

>>7773751
gonna need a stronger meme than that friend

>>7773452

Can't believe I got memed into reading White Noise.

>>7773791

the excerpt was from the fault in our stars

also whats wrong with white noise by don delillo if thats what you're talking about

>>7772876
you sound like an asshole

>>7773018
Things are different things for different people.

I look at writing as a way to find someone as fucked up as I am and share a moment with them. It's a niche audience, but if I wrote anything else then I'd be a fraud and feel like one.

>>7773791
hahahahaha good joke faggot but here's a tip faggot ... *revs up chainsaw and puts on bloody hockey mask* DON'T EVER FUCKIN INSULT DELILLO LIKE THAT AGAIN, OKAY FAGGOT?!?!?!?!?........

>>7773791
The bottom quote does honestly sound like something Murray might say.

OP you're a fucking idiot to adopt any mentality on the basis that someone else said it so it must be true. You're no different from that girl except she actually read the book and can have a base-level conversation about it.

You can't proxy lit's experience holy shit. You're not even arguing for something you believe in, you're just a parrot. Fucking kill yourself. Everyone in that class thinks you're a massive faggot for thinking you're better than someone on the basis of different tastes. Ones that YOU CAN'T EVEN JUSTIFY BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T HAVE THEM YOU JUST HEARD ABOUT THEM.

>>7773817
The top one is very Heinrich.

>>7772876
>>>/pol/

>>7773473
When i was 12 i used to say Hugo was worthless. You'll grow up too.

>>7772876
This man is a leftist scum.

Like all Leftist, this man is the equivalent of the obscurantist and fanatics christian during Religious war in 16 th. He cannot think, he can only emotionally react. He is also intolerant and cannot accept that people think that theses values are bad and will call these persons fascist.

So he cannot write without thinking like a leftist because all his way to think the world is very close minded.

>>7772900
Its not coincidence. They meet at a cancer support group so its entirely logical that this "le quirky love story" could feasibly occur.

>>7772876
Get ready to hedge all of your words, assuming you're not lying.

>A)
You're going to have to start with his strengths, or to concede some ground to ease them into it. If you've actually been forced into this (which sounds like utter BS) then they'll go in ready to hate you. The less confrontational you are the more they'll be receptive to your opinions.

>B) Generalizations and platitudes.
Sounds bad on paper, but as someone else mentioned, you can easily make the argument that there are simply better things to read.

The issue is that "Young Adult Fiction" is more a descriptor of a medium than a genre. There are sci-fi, horror, mystery, etc, versions of "Young Adult" fiction. So what does young adult fiction mean then? It means fiction that's meant to appeal to immature tastes and reading comprehension.

Then follow this up easily with classic novels: Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, Call of the Wild, Frankenstein, etc. These are all novels that are well in the capabilities and tastes of young adults, but they aren't DEFINED by that. They're simply solid fiction that CAN appeal to young adults.

>C) Challenges.
Don't aspire to mediocrity.

>D) ACTUALLY read and listen to him.
For fucks sake don't spout your idiotic opinions if you haven't read or listened to him. I've done both. I think he's decent, you could do much better, but you could do worse. I think he very much goes into writing with the awareness of wanting simply to encourage people to read, and not to act like some big shot. He's just happy to have had success. Knowing this will help you with doing A) and make you less of an asshole.

E) Appeal to subjectivity.
If you have to say what makes him bad in YOUR pov then you can conclude with specifics on what is unappealing to you. i.e. he doesn't focus on big questions, doesn't have subtly, doesn't have intertextuality, etc.

>>7772876

He is a cuckold

>>7773632
Is it possible that the characters aren't meant to be considered reliable interpreters of their own behavior/events?

Like their "fatal flaw" is not that they have cancer, but thinking that having had cancer automatically ruins their life and leaves them no agency? Then their pretentious references to it would be an ironic commentary on the average YA reader.

That'd be commendable. Although I doubt that's the intent.

>>7774120
Thanks :) Well I guess its going to be easier than expected.

>>7774003
>>7774124
>>>/pol/
>>7774159
I sometimes sorta think that's the intent, but I'm really not sure. e.g. see: >>7773392. But there's nothing extratextual, i.e. that he's said, on say his videos, to really bring that to a close.

I don't know. The guy's a big fan of DFW, so I wouldn't be that surprised.

>>7773452
>>When adults say, "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.

What a whole muncha buncha cruncha nothing.

>>7773079
The target audience IS part of the issue, though. In a university level literature class, a teen romance novelist should not be anyone's favourite author. If they are, it demonstrates an immaturity in the reader.

>>7772876

He sounds like a communist and islam apologist therefore retarded.

>>7773632
>21st-century pseudo-leftist drones, which, let's be honest, is just a fashionable way of religion

SHOTS FIRED

>>7773821
Kill yourself. Whatever emotional trauma caused you to be like this obviously cannot be repaired, and you'll be an unhappy, disgusting pleb for the rest of your life.

>>7772876
John Green is a genius in the same way Max Martin is a genius. They both understand how the majority of young people think and can cater to it.

There work is not art and is not designed to be art. It is made to sell, and with that goal in mind, both are very successful. Even the name "Young Adult" for a genre shows how the book is designed to appeal to a specific demographic rather than be a serious work of literature.

The implication is that people will "outgrow" these types of books rather than to continue to be held in high regards for a person's entire life.

John Green became exactly what he wanted to be, which was never a good author, but a successful (in a monetary sense) one.

The major difference being that wanting to be successful means to write for the masses and that means to write in a way that the average person will understand. It also means to respect the standard conventions of writing and not try anything, new, bold, ambitious and a number of other qualities good authors aim for.

The average person has never read Ulysses and probable never will. Joyce was never successful (again, in a monetary sense) but all of his works are well respected and are still at the forefront of literature even after all these years.

He opted to write stuff that pushed the boundaries rather than write stuff that sells.

John Green has done the opposite. He has done it extremely well which in itself tells you how good his writing is.

Ironically his title "The Fault in Our Stars" is telling about his book. The book never had a chance to be great lit since its author metaphorically neutered it before it was written. You can't write a great book when you aspire for mediocrity.

There is my argument anon, I hope you are still there and do read it. Also you probably could replace Joyce with someone else, I general think of Joyce as someone who only memers hate on (ironically ofc :^) ) and so using someone everyone respects will help your argument.

>>7774382
>I general think of Joyce as someone who only memers hate on

No, most people legitimately do not have in them the necessary mental capability to enjoy Joyce. It's only understandable that they would hate him.

>>7773773
Not him, but this meme is pretty dank.

>>7773632
10/10 post desu

>>7774344
wew lad

John Green is the living embodiment of the smug, detached Gen-X ethos.

I'd venture to guess he has never felt a single sincere conviction about anything since childhood. he exists as a polyp upon the colon of culture, satiating himself on the perceived failures of others (i.e. "The Man") while adding nothing new to the discourse aside from ironic complaint.

he's an insecure, lost, rapidly aging burnout who silently believes he could do a better job of making literature than the professionals in the industry. Yet he lack the ambition and ability to actually enter the very industry he's obsessed with. he chooses instead to fuck around and make vertical video piss-takes well into middle age with his far more talented and handsome brother.

He is an awful, awful person. I've met thousands just like him, and the last thing we need is for him to gain any attention for his navel gazing.

Please, /lit/, do not aspire to become anything like him. his is a lonely and pathetic road leading to depression and a life devoid of real purpose.

I hope he disappears and his disaffected followers stop subsidizing his lifestyle. Perhaps that would force him to do something productive with himself.

>>7772876

He would be ok with having a girlfriend who had 47 previous sexual partners.

/thread

>>7774495
much better bravo

saved tbqh

>>7774544
>>>/pol/

>>7772876
Can you not just say "no"? How can she force you to do a presentation because you expressed an opinion?
Also, did you explicitely say that he is a bad author? You can just say you dislike him because of his political views or his ethnicity.

Tbqh w/ u senpai, it sounds like you are just trying to b8 us.

>>7774554

>>>/reddit/

the john green posting is getting really, really old

please stop

>>7772965
This image always really fucking bothers me. Aside from the whole
>food analogy
meme, isn't the obvious comparison not trying 48 different types of cereal, but eating one bowl of cheerios and finding out you're the 48th person to eat that particular bowl?

>>7772900
>the bard's prose
>prose

>>7773722
I think you are giving it a lot more thought than Green did.

I'm pretty sure the pile of books in her bedroom is there to appeal to the sense of accomplishment of his readers who have 4 never-read books piled up in their bedroom and think they are patricians.

>>7773091
>breeding
It's a period piece that takes place before widespreas knowledge and availability of contraceptives?

>>7774558
>>>/trash/

>>7772965
What a fucking faggit, how many times has this shit been repeated this meme is so disgusting I hope he become a character from his book.

>>7772998
Elliott is not a may may, he's the real thing, it doesn't get realer than that.

>>7773646
Of those two options that' the better one.

>>7773722
>Also that is to say there is no meta textuality (no statements about writing or the novel itself)
Modernism was a mistake.

>>7773452

>>7774952
nah

>>7773464
>>7773464
Okay, /lit/....Out of everything that i've seen on 4chan....including /b/ and /pol/...this is honestly the most offensive and ignorant thing i've ever seen.

>>7772876
You just made that story up, I've never met a Professor in my life that gets so buttblasted at someone laughing at their favourite author/book

>>7772884
Just yell this at the teacher, op, you'll do fine>>7772889

>>7773452
more like your parents have been there done that and know how asinine your thought process is.

>>7772965
I don't get whats the point of the different frames. And why they chose the worst possible one for the lower left

>>7775070
i am already having a bad day and this shit....well, it really fuels my sadness

>>7774601
I like to say that it's like shoving 48 dicks in a bowl of Cheerios and then being left with the soggy mess

>>7773452
I think he knew what he was going for, so yeah terrible writing but good money I guess

>>7773632
I know this isn't reddit, but I'd upvote you.

>>7772876
never realized it but this john green guy you guys keep making new threads about is the crash course guy.
never really payed attention to these threads but whatever.
>>7772876
what i actually wanted to say was that you shouldnt have to do any of this. if she singled you out and gave you more work just cause you chuckled a bit then that's total bullshit.
if you really dont want to do it tell her to fuck off. if you do then whatever.

>>7775391
>>>/reddit/

>>7775391
>>>/reddit/
youre basically asking for it at this point

>>7772876
If you can't even bullshit that much, you aren't going to go far in literature class.

The secret to all lit classes is just to bullshit everything. I'm sure everyone has an experience where they didn't read work in time, still wrote a paper on it and received a perfect score.

You've pissed off the teacher though, so what will happen is that whatever you write, the teacher will pick it apart and mock you in front of the class because her job is spouting bullshit and she can probably do it well enough in real time to impress the John green reading retards in your class. You're fucked no matter what your paper says.

>>7775406
>>7775415
I know. I know.

>>7775391
>upvote
This is why reddit is bad.

>>7775391
jesus christ
>>7775452
w e w

>>7775497
>>7775503
I'm sorry guys. I just wanted to tell him I liked his post.

>>7772965

>eating sloppy forty-eighths is still special

>>7775540
>He needs sex to be "special".
Motherfuckers brainwashed by fairytales.

>>7773077
I don't think it was unintentional though. He changed the quote from the fault not being in their stars to the exact opposite thing and followed through on that. It's like how DFW wrote a story called The Soul is Not A Smithy shitting on a quote from Portrait of the Artist where Stephen talks about the "smithy" of his soul.

>>7773486
Odysseus deserves a god damn medal. He left goddess pussy for mortal pussy, old mortal pussy at that

>>7775560
So essentially the totally didactic message he's trying to hammer home to teenage girls is "everything you do is 100% perfect, the world (fate) is just out to get you"
sounds about right.

>>7775510
It's okay, anon, I appreciate it.

>>7775573
>cancer us your own fault
Go to bed micheee.

>>7775573
Cancer was not in the book (as it should never be, of course) some 'character flaw' and she, and him, have others besides, things that actually do determine their situation. Neither of them really understand their situation, coherently, in the book, actually, and they're really just grasping at pretentious straws the whole time.

>>7773339
I can see what you're saying, but Green's audience doesn't agree with you. They want grandiose stories of a world more powerful than them taking their happiness away.

>>7775588
It can be. Like if you smoke, drink, and eat a shitload of processed meat/sugar substitutes/other additive filled shit, you're increasing your risk factor.

>>7775621
That's not what it was like in the book, though. It wasn't even a real type of cancer with a real treatment, he made the medicine that keeps Hazel alive up. Total hack.

I don't think it matters because OP's situation is fake anyway.

>>7775627
lol like dfw made up chemicals in infinite jest! how wacky!!

>>7775620
That's what it's like to be a teen in the US. You're expected to act mature, but still treated like a child in various institutional ways while also being a hormonal trainwreck.

It's still all very boring and trite, yes, but the problem isn't really with Josh Green, it's with emotionally stunted 20-somethings craving cheap, lazy entertainment that caters to their views and expectations.

>>7775654
DFW had a point to it, though, Green just did it so that cancer-ridden girl could walk around enough to live out her shit romance. Just pathetic deus ex machina crap.

>>7775662
DFW most certainly did not have a point for over 90% of his pomo ramblings

>>7775670
>DFW
>pomo ramblings
Confirmed for an illiterate retard.

>>7774889
Not that they necessarily will reproduce, only the case does raise the possibility and it is distasteful in a way that would be impossible to articulate in a socially acceptable manner.

Do you disagree? You think terminally ill cancer patients ought to solicit pregnancy?

>>7775681
No teenagers are fucking to "solicit pregnancy". Are you autistic or something?

>>7775677
You're the illiterate subhuman.

DFW wanted to one up DeLillo, but he even failed at that. Your god is a no talent manchild.

>>7775683
You're literally wrong and that's not what I said. Stop being a cunt

>>7772876
I've actually read his books two years ago because my friends liked (notice the word liked) them. Here's a list of cons and pros,since you're writing an argumentative essay.

Cons:
>bad prose
>all his books follow a same formula
>manic pixie dream girl/boy
>"some infinities are bigger than other infinities"
>kissing scene at anne frank's memorial where everybody claps fucking hell

Pros:
>less worse than the rest of YA books out there

if someone's not 13 and likes john green, it's just depressing.

>>7775859
>kissing scene at anne frank's memorial where everybody claps fucking hell
I'm new to hating John Green. What's this about?

>>7775859
>>"some infinities are bigger than other infinities"
What's the problem here?

>>7775868
the two main characters go to amsterdam and after being rebuked by their mutual favorite author (which I think was Green doing something re: death of the author, but it was really quite lame) and then go to the Anne Frank house, and at the top of the staircase, which the girl struggles with, heavily, they kiss, and people viewing it applaud, and there's supposed to be some relation to their romance, and the romance that budded between Anne and whatever his name was. What the relation indicates should be obvious, but it's all very mawkish and ridiculous anyhow.

>>7775879
>plane lands, applause
>movie ends, applause
>fry cook manages to double-fry the fries, applause
>people kiss at a place where the holocaust is remembered, applause

bloody yanks

>>7775881
>amsterdam
>most of the people in the anne frank house in the current year are american
actually yeah probably.

>>7773158
That sentence is structured so poorly I had to read it like four times, then forgot what I'd figured out on the fifth.

>>7775879

this is so fucking weird and arbitrary. The symbol is forced on the reader : the characters go way out of the story's context for a single scene.

>>7775881
You don't clap when the movie ends if it was really good? That's genuinely surprising

>>7775896
yep

>>7775881
The movie thing happens sometimes, but I've never been on a plane where that happened. Also double-frying the fries deserves applause.

>>7773117
she used to be such a qt, what the fuck happened to her

>>7775972
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9-eVdx9Nxo

>>7773125
plato pls

>>7772876
Should Greenposting be a bannable offence?

>>7772876

You don't need to argue against him, he ridicules himself

>>7775886
tfw you walk right past the Anne Frank house and go to the cheese museum instead