The Fault in Our Stars

Written By John Green
Original Publication Date: 2012

Rating: 5 Stars Out of 5

Book Notes:

No notes in this book as there usually are. It only took me four hours to read, and I truly stopped for nothing. Not even to mull over points.

Review:

Of the four hours it took me to read this novel, I sobbed for two.  Curse you, John Green, for writing something so fucking beautifully depressing.

Hazel is a 16 year old girl who loves to read and watch bad reality television. She has loving, devoted, parents.  She doesn't see her best friend, Kaitlyn, as often as she'd like to because she doesn't attend high school.  She has, however, gotten her GED and takes a couple of classes at the local community college.  She's falling in love with her wonderful boyfriend, Augustus Waters, and they're on a mission to find their favorite author and have him follow up on his novel, which ends abruptly.

They'd be average, normal, though overly articulate and self-aware (John Green tends to do that with all his characters), teenagers except they met in a cancer survivor support group.  Hazel has aggressive thyroid cancer that spread to her lungs, but the mets' growth is slowed by an experimental drug; she could live "a long time," like this as long as she keeps her oxygen tank and has her lungs drained every so often.  Augustus has lost a leg to someformofcancerI'veneverheardofbefore, but he's been in remission ever since.

This is a love story both in spite of cancer and because of cancer.  The love story is beautiful, and obviously doomed.  I started sniffling barely 30% into the novel, by the time I was at 60%, I was all out sobbing, highlighting favorite passages when the crying got so bad I could barely see the page.  I want you to understand something.   I. Do. Not. Cry. At. Books.  I just don't.  So, even warned as I was that it was a tragedy, I didn't realize how much this novel was going to tear my heart into itty bitty paper pieces.  

My only real problem with the novel was Augustus.  And at that, he was only a problem when he was first introduced.  He was this broody, muscly, pretentious, douchenozzle; and that puts it mildly.  I outright hated him for a while.  He obviously knew that he was smart and thoughtful and he tried so damned hard to sound smarter than other people.

This novel is going directly on my list of favorite books of all time.  I still have a head(heart)ache from all the crying I just did.  I'd like to both Thank and Curse John Green for this novel.