Nerdfighter Win!

Every year my family visits the Fricks during the first weekend in August, and on Saturday we go to the Blueberry Festival. After breakfast of blueberry pancakes, sausage, and fruit cups, we hit the used book sale. This year they had a record amount of books. Immediately after I entered the book tent, I spotted a couple of Monk books. (They are based on the TV show, which is about an obsessive compulsive detective.) When I picked one up, I realized right next to it was a copy of Paper Towns!

Here's some background so you understand why this is exciting: I follow vlogbrothers John and Hank Green on YouTube. After I knew that John was a YA author, I started looking for his books. I've searched several used book sales and shops and never saw any of his novels. I came to the conclusion that John's books are so good that no one would want to get rid of them. I was able to read them all by borrowing them from the library, but I still keep my eye out to buy them. Since I watch John's videos all the time, I feel like I know him. So I was pleasantly surprised to find a John Green book right away--I hadn't even started to hunt for anything specific yet.

Now, sometimes John or fans (aka Nerdfighters) will go to a bookstore and tuck a note inside one of John's books for whoever happens to buy that book. So I was thinking about that and opened the book just in case. And there was a note! Inside the front cover were two orange post-its that said this:

"To my dear Alisha: Make an adventure of it. <3 Amanda :)"

and

"Paper Towns: It's a signed copy. :) The girl reminds me of you. I <3ed it. :) It's different. I met the author, and his brother. Hope you enjoy it."

Wow! I'm surprised that after Amanda put a lot of thought into giving her friend this book, Alisha got rid of it, personal notes and all. What happened there?! Secondly, did she say signed?! Sure enough, there on the title page is "J Scribble"! No way, that is so cool! I lucked into a signed copy?

So then I flipped through to see if there were any other notes, and I discovered there are five more orange post-its stuck throughout the book! I like this one on page 22:

"Promise me you'll look up & listen to the "Black Santas" song by Hank Green on Youtube! I heard it live! Haha"

If you haven't read the book, there's a character whose parents have the world's largest collection of black Santas. I don't remember Hank singing about it, but I found this song by someone else from one of their live events. The video is shaky, but you can occasionally see John and Hank on the side cracking up. :P

Anyway, the best part is, I got this super awesome book for only $2! (The hardcover goes for $18 new). This particular novel has two different choices of art for the hardcover (and the paperback has a third completely different picture). The one I happened to get is happy Margo. :D


(Happy Margo didn't forget to be awesome. Sad Margo did.)