Everyone knows that you should never judge a book by its cover, but you also shouldn’t judge it by its target demographic either.

Continuing the recent trend to quickly adapt best-selling books to the silver screen, John Green’s “The Fault in our Stars” opened last weekend, much to the delight of 14-year-old girls everywhere.

You see “Fault” is part of an always strong and rapidly growing fiction category for young adults, called YA in literary circles. Well, I have long since left those young adult years behind but I stumbled onto this book somewhere.

I think I was the victim of digital marketing on Amazon or the like that popped up a recommendation based on something else I read or looked at in the past.

The synopsis — two teenagers in a cancer support group become friends and fall in love — isn’t something that would normally grab me, but there was something about it that made me want to give it a shot. Clearly I’m not alone as it went on to be a bestseller and certainly transcended that target demographic.

So I took a chance. When it came a few days later I was about to take a trip so I tossed it in my bag. I’m pretty sure I was hooked before the airplanes wheels ever left the ground.

I was done by the time I touched down on the return flight that night.

Good writing is just good writing.

Despite being targeted toward a younger audience, the book touches on some surprisingly adult themes of love, life, death and just putting yourself out there.

You won’t find any spoilers here, but I think taking a chance on John Green’s novel or watching the adaptation on the silver screen time would be time well spent for young and old.

 

Michael Caldwell is the publisher of Leader Publications LLC. He can be reached at (269) 687-7700 or by email at mike.caldwell@leaderpub.com.