Review: Fault in Our Stars

Author: John Green
Release Date: January 10, 2012
Publisher: Dutton Books
Pages: 313
Source: Bought
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Summary:  Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 13, 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.

My Favorite Lines:  Oh.  My.  Gosh.  There is absolutely no way to choose, but I shall provide some examples of why the book is phenomenal.

“Some people don't understand the promises they're making when they make them," I said."Right, of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That's what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway.” 

“Oh, I wouldn't mind, Hazel Grace. It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you.” 

“Without pain, how could we know joy?' This is an old argument in the field of thinking about suffering and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries but suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not, in any way, affect the taste of chocolate.” 

Why I Loved It:  There is no one in the world of YA like John Green.  Granted I have only read two books, but the library is going to help me rectify that.  Still The Fault in Our Stars?  Incredible, phenomenal, with a clean intelligence that thrilled me to the core so many times.  I reread passages over and over because of that thrill.  John Green has a way of expressing the world in the language of nerds.  I've never heard love described in terms of math and loved it.  John Green accomplishes so much n this book in a way that I want everyone to read.  I feel about as feverish about this book as Hazel felt about An Imperial Affliction.  I was overtaken by an "evangelical zeal" when I started recommending this book.  People who don't normally go for YA will still love John Green.  For me, he doesn't fit into a category because there is no boxing him in.

His main characters in this book are pretentious, intelligent, and wise about life.  Hazel and Augustus both have experienced cancer.  Gus lost a leg to it.  Hazel fights it everyday with lungs that "suck at being lungs."  Both of them see the world in a way that many will never see it.  Cancer is a side effect of living, and Gus and Hazel call themselves side effects.  I've never had cancer, and I pray to avoid it.  But my grandmother has battled it.  In the book it talks about cancer is so hard because cancer is made up of the person battling it.  It makes it harder to fight when you are battling part of yourself.

I really have no words to express the colossal and honest genuinely that is the work of one John Green.  All I can say is please take the time, if you haven't already, to read this book.  You will not be sorry.