The Fault in Our Stars by John GreenPublication Date: January 10, 2012
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile / Penguin
Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 12, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs... for now.
Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault.
Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind.
Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault.
Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind.
Books that make me the most emotional tend to be the hardest for me to review, so I don't know how I'm going to put my thoughts on The Fault in Our Stars in to words, but I will try. Maybe I'll start with adjectives: beautiful, heart-wrenching, heartwarming, hilarious, meaningful...there, that's a good start...
John does a fantastic job of balancing the humor and the dramatic and nothing ever becomes overdone. There is no melodrama which is an easy trap to fall into when writing on this topic. It's all too real of a novel. I immediately fell in love with Hazel and when Augustus entered the scene...GUH. LOVE. BOTH OF THEM. LOVE. I think that's all that I can express on that. The whole cast of characters are well thought out and create a great ensemble. This is definitely a novel that when it ends, you want to know what happens to every single person in the story: Who's dead? Who's happy? Who's dead and happy?
I laughed and cried and laughed and cried and cried and cried and laughed and finished the book sobbing. It is a novel that stays with you long after you read it. Gorgeous.
You know, I wish there was such thing as a John Green theme park. A theme park where I could meet all the characters in his books and have my picture taken with them and put their autographs in a little autograph book. Someone should get on this.
My copy came in the mail yesterday and I am trying to resist reading it so I can finish the book on my kindle.
ReplyDeleteI love everything John Green writes!!
@Jen Ryland: Poor poor book on your Kindle. Nothing can compete with a new John Green book.
ReplyDeleteAnd laugh, and roll your eyes, and get that feeling that you should be happy for the characters in your book, but you keep crying anyway?
ReplyDeleteThat's what I got when I read TFiOS (as well as a j-scribble, and a hanklerfish) and so much more. I grew to genuinely love Hazel and Augustus, although I will admit to mentally altering his name from Gus to Augustus whenever I saw it written as such, completely ruining a rather important of the book, I believe