Author: John Green

Perhaps you've discovered Brotherhood 2.0 already, but if you haven't...it's amazing. Brothers John and Hank Green are spending 2007 communicating without text (email, text messages, letters, etc) and have recorded a video blog entry for every day of this year. Most loyal Brotherhood 2.0 viewers are nerdfighters, described as nerds who fight for the rights of nerd everywhere; John and Hank say they're made of awesome. And it's true. A friend and I were discussing today what we're going to do when the year is over and they stop making videos every day. Our conclusion: surely die. If you can only watch one, I'd suggest August 30th which is a rare occasion of John and Hank appearing together in a video. It also contains one of my favorite lines ever:

John: The nerdfighter happy dance videos are so crazy, sexy and cool, they could be a TLC album!
Hank: Word.

That was a very long introduction to the fact that John is, in addition to being a nerdfighter, an author of young adult books. His two books Looking For Alaska and An Abundance Of Katherines are both wonderful, well-written and funny. Looking For Alaska is about sixteen-year-old Miles and his experience at a boarding school. Miles tries to explore a relationship that is more than friends with Alaska, the mysterious feminist who enjoys Miles obsession with famous last words. Readers are led to believe that a momentous event is on its way as chapters are titled 30 Days Before and such. When tragedy strikes Miles and his prankster friends, they must figure out how to deal with what has happened. This book was very clever and witty while still managing to deal with intense subject matter appropriately. I loved it.

An Abundance of Katherines deals with genius and recent high school graduate Colin who is trying to devise a mathematical equation to explain why he's dated and been dumped by 19 girls named Katherine. When the book begins, Colin has just been dumped by Katherine the Nineteenth and is very sad. His best friend Hassan decides that the two are going to take a road trip and they end up in Gunshot, Tennessee of all places. They end up staying and getting jobs with Lindsey, a local whose friends make the summer interesting for Hassan and Colin. This book has my new favorite fun book special feature: footnotes. I've determined that only the coolest fiction/memoir-ish books have footnotes. This book, Paul Feig's Superstud and Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs all have footnotes thereby proving my point.

So yeah, John Green and his brother Hank are both pretty jokes. You should all check out Brotherhood 2.0. NERDFIGHTERS!