Their love story takes place in Augustus’s basement where they play video games, Amsterdam where they go to ask questions of the reclusive author of a favorite book, and in hospitals and living rooms where they deal with the reality of dying. Hazel falls for his crooked smile and goofy personality. He “had a little touch of osteosarcoma’’ that required a leg amputation but is now in remission. Hazel meets Augustus Waters in a local Indianapolis cancer support group. She has terminal thyroid cancer and has to haul around an oxygen tank because she has “lungs that suck at being lungs,’’ but her story is as much a celebration of life and love as it is about endings.

She can recite poetry from memory, but loves “America’s Next Top Model’’ marathons. She may be shy, but she uses colloquialisms, to put it politely, that are usually heard only in high school locker rooms.

If brave, sweet Beth March of “Little Women’’ is the archetype for the sick character in children’s literature, then Green’s protagonist, 16-year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster, is, in many ways, the anti-Beth. With allusions to Thoreau, Frost, Dickinson, and even his first book, “Looking for Alaska,’’ Green’s latest displays his incredible talent and his faith in the mental and emotional intelligence of his devoted fans. “The Fault in Our Stars’’ is a love story about two teenagers with cancer who decide not just to survive, but to live. Her downward spiral happens quickly, and readers are left to decide how much of what they have witnessed is true and which is more real: the world inside Glory’s mind or the one outside that offers her no comfort? With its matte photos, angst-laden postcards and dialogue, and discombobulating videos, “Chopsticks’’ is lovely, creative, and quietly provocative.įinally, we come to the long-anticipated new novel from Printz Award winner John Green. She begins uncontrollably interrupting her performances at famous concert halls around the world by breaking into the “Chopsticks’’ waltz. But even as Glory gains love she is losing her sanity.

When Francisco Mendoza moves next door to her in the Bronx fresh from Argentina she is able to experience what it feels like to be a normal teen. Gloria “Glory’’ Fleming is a piano prodigy who lost her mother when she was young and is consumed by her loneliness and isolated by her talent. Using photos, bits of text, YouTube videos, and original art, among other elements, Anthony and Corral employ a scrapbook-like format to test the narrative possibilities of multimedia storytelling.

Readers are able to experience “Chopsticks’’ by Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral as a website, an app, or by opening a hefty print book. But if love can be funny and capricious, it can also be strong enough to seem like a sign of insanity.

Chopsticks by jessica anthony