Win a FREE SIGNED COPY of The Fault in Our Stars by John Green!!

I HAVE ANOTHER GIVEAWAY FOR YOU GUYS!

Their tour bus!

~NOTE: If you don't want to read my ramblings about meeting John Green in person, you can simply skip down to the end and enter to win a free signed (and Hanklerfished!) copy of John Green's newest book, The Fault in Our Stars. The entry widget is at the bottom of the post!~

FIRST, THE STORY!

So about two weeks ago, I had the enormous privilege of meeting John and Hank Green when they came to Atlanta on their Tour de Nerdfighting.

John Green reading a chapter of his new book.

About John Green:

John Green is an award-winning YA author and YouTube celebrity (and hilariously, he was an author before he was an internet celebrity although usually it's the other way around). He has been called the JD Salinger of this generation--a totally deserved designation, in my opinion--and his books have won honors like the prestigious Printz and Edgar Allen Poe awards. In addition to penning incredible works of literary fiction for young adults, John and his musician brother Hank have an incredibly successful YouTube channel called the Vlogbrothers, which has over 600,000 subscribers and which is #36 Most Subscribed of All Time channel on YouTube. His brother, Hank Green, is a musician and the co-founder of DFTBA records, among many other awesome jobs like running Ecogeek.org.

Hank singing about Hogwarts

It was a very memorable night. My husband went with me, and although he hasn't read any of John's books and has only seen a few of their vlogs (I am the avid nerdfighter in this family), he had a really good time too. They put on a complete show for a packed-out auditorium of readers and Vlogbrothers fans (there were like, 800 of us)--John read aloud from his The Fault in Our Stars, answered questions, and waxed really eloquent about the themes of the book. Hank played a bunch of his songs and sang. They did a bunch of other stuff that would be nearly impossible to explain if you don't watch the videos regularly, like sock puppets and a shock punishment to the person who went over time on the questions (Hank got shocked). It was a great experience. Then they signed books.

I stood in line for almost 3 hours because my husband and I were towards the back of the auditorium, but when we got up to the table John and Hank still took about 30 seconds to a minute to chat with us despite the fact that they must've been completely exhausted. They were so friendly and charming--John complimented my husband on his "awesome beard," and Hank and my husband chatted about Weird Al while I mostly quietly freaked out that I was so close to both of them. (Captain Nemo was not star-struck like me, as he isn't super familiar with them and so he just treated them like a couple of cool geeks that he might have met in line at a GameStop).

We had to each purchase a copy of TFioS to get into the show, so I ended up with two signed copies of The Fault in Our Stars. I don't need both, obviously, so I thought I'd give one away to you guys.

A word about The Fault in Our Stars:


This is my favorite John Green book, hands down. John has this incredible ability to write Very Important Literary Novels that are somehow hilarious, endearing, and accessible even while they're winning all kinds of lofty awards and facilitating deep philosophical discussions. Whenever anyone complains about how shallow or frothy YA lit is, I always point them to John Green. I truly think his books will be studied in classrooms in the future.

The Fault in Our Stars is about a girl named Hazel who is sixteen and dying of cancer. She meets and falls in love with Augustus, a seventeen-year-old guy who's had bone cancer but recovered, losing only his leg to amputation. The story takes an honest and unsentimental look at death, dying, love, and grief--John Green actually wrote TFioS after his one of own friends died of cancer about two years ago. I don't normally cry in books that are about tear-jerker subjects, but I definitely got a little sobby during the latter half of this book. The story takes several unexpected turns and the ending left me in tears (but in a good way).

(Note--for those concerned about this sort of thing, all John Green books fall under the "incredibly mature" YA section for language and sexual discussion/activity. He is an incredibly frank author, although this one probably had the least amount of strong language in it, only one F-word that I can remember.)

GIVEAWAY RULES!

So, here's the drill. I have one hardcover, signed (and Hanklerfished, a drawing of an angler fish compliments of Hank Green) copy of the book to give away. Due to the size and weight of the book, this is definitely a US ONLY giveaway (sorry, international readers! I'll have some kind of ebook giveaway soon, I promise).

I didn't make any of the entries mandatory, so you can just pick whichever ones you want to do. Each task that you complete gives you more chances to win!

The giveaway concludes next Tuesday, and the winner will be chosen using Random.org.



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