John Green writes novels for young adults, but you don't have to be young to enjoy them. I'm forty-three, and he's one of my favorite contemporary authors. I became a fan of Green not by reading his books but by watching videos on his amazing YouTube channels CrashCourse, Mental Floss, and Vlogbrothers. I thought I was too sophisticated and mature to read a young-adult novel, but I love Green so much I gave him a shot.
When seventeen-year-old Tana wakes up hungover from a wild party at a remote farmhouse, surrounded by dead classmates, she thinks things can't get any worse...until she discovers a mysterious vampire named Gavriel chained up in the same room as her bitten ex-boyfriend Aiden, who is about to turn into a full-fledged bloodsucker at any moment.
Soren Bearskin has grown up in a United States colonized by the Vikings rather than the Puritans, a country where trolls hide in the mountains and Norse gods walk the land, where children learn how to sword-fight in school and every year the land is renewed by the god of light, Baldur, as he is resurrected from his winter death. Except this year, Baldur fails to appear. A search is begun, a boon is offered by Odin to whomever can return his missing sun, and Astrid Glyn, the daughter of the most famous seer in New Asgard, convinces Soren that it is their fate to find Baldur. Together, the
