It is rare for a book to spawn a review before i have completed it, and vastly rarer still to initiate such said spawnage after only a few chapters. This rarity is further compounded when a book causes facial confusion to such an extent, as The Fault in our Stars (by John Green), and although that is perhaps only a circumstantial effect, it is worthy of at least a small and timid note, and perhaps as equally timorous of a note would be that i am not sure where it was that i was pointed toward this book, but the fact that Marcus Zuszak (author of The Book Thief, which is like the best book ever written (and i mean that in the sense of it (if not being the best book ever written) being at least roughly similar to the best book ever written) gave it high praise in his backcover blurbage, which allowed me to skip to the side of my slight (insecure?) discomfort caused by the tag on the spine of the book (applied by the library staff) reading loudly “HIGH SCHOOL” and proceed to first deem the book a capable solo accompaniment to my first-thing-in-the-morning platelet donation appointment, and then secondly to delve into its pages as my strong coffee and chocolate chip cookies were delivered (as i lay in my prone position with the needle lodged painlessly in my right median-cubital vein).
Soon after the apheresis machine completed its second return cycle, the aforementioned facial confusion began (scarcely before the second chapter had initiated), and at this point perhaps the Tums were brought to me only seconds too late to prevent the tingling in my lips (being that the Tums mitigate the oft-experienced side-effect of the citrate (which is added to the returning blood to prevent clotting)), but it was late enough that i could not completely invalidate the possibility of the causal nature of the citrate and its involvement in the increasing strange sensations i was noticing in my face (which had by this point expanded curiously into territories outside of my greater oral-lipular boundary). Even if i was able to ascribe my somewhat-numb-lippiness to the citrate, I became more and more convinced that the other uncontrollable facial affectations could have some basis in the words that were being absorbed into the cellular matter of my brain.
Given this partial certainty, it was required that i rest the book upside down on my prop pillow (on top of the half-body heating pad and blanket installed to maximize my comfort and speed of donation cycle) and consider at least every few pages, what exactly it might be in these words that could cause such distinct and decentralized sensations in my facial topography. Was it that the characters were “real” to me in some innovative manner? Was it the parallel overlappage intersectedness between the lighthearted (in the most respectful manner possible (which is actually quite respectful)) description of children with cancer and the fact that i was currently involved in a donation process that was destined to benefit actual (non-fictional-book-based humans) cancer patients? Was i simply experiencing a hitherto unnoticed hormonal fluctuation that made me unaccustomed to these particular facial sensations?
After pondering these hypotheses, and multitudes of other possible explanatory directions, i resigned myself to simply reading the book and maximizing my enjoyment of it by somehow monitoring and possibly managing to keep my concurrent brain chatter to a minimum. All of this being said, there remains the possibility that ultimately this (so far quite fine and distinguished) book will disappoint me, but if i allow myself to examine even that small fear, i am rebounded by the myopically hopeful belief that even that disappointment will be exactly what it is i wanted.
In closing, i would also like to thank my long-suffering wife, the pulchritudinous and otherwise also amazing Melissa Fuller, for allowing me to convince her away from the good computer and (mostly for my particular requirements) keyboard. I formally and publicly apologize for insisting the usage would be quickly resolved, when i (if forced to consider my excessively wordy proclivities) would have to admit that perhaps i was less than totally unmisleading in my characterization of the timeframe required for the completion of this venture. I shall struggle to make this up to you (along with the thousands of other tiny things i am already struggling to make up to you) until the instant at which i perish.
