The Fault in Our Stars
The beloved, #1 global bestseller by John Green, author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and Turtles All the Way Down "John Green is one of the best writers alive." -E. Lockhart, #1 bestselling author of We Were Liars "The greatest romance story of this decade.″ -Entertainment Weekly #1 New York Times Bestseller - #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller - #1 USA Today Bestseller - #1 International Bestseller Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten. From John Green, #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and Turtles All the Way Down, The Fault in Our Stars is insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw. It brilliantly explores the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.
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Community Reviews
I inherently understand that if I write a review for a book like this, where so many countless thousands have done likewise, it will be buried in the vastness of the anonymous Internet. Having said that, I think the purpose of this review is the same as the purpose of this book: reflection and searching.
John Green is an interesting author. I did not want to read his books. This always happens to me. I'm an idiot. I don't like to read books that are popular in the ground-breaking, earth-shattering kind of way. I resisted Harry Potter, I resisted Twilight, I learned I had good reason to resist Twilight, I resisted The Hunger Games. . .the list is unconscionably long. I apparently have a problem with people telling me how good a book is and then that I should read it even though as soon as I cave and I'm done with it, I realize that they were right and then turn around and do the same thing myself. But getting back to John Green. He is pretentious. He creates heroes even as he says he is not creating heroes. He gets at what all angsty teenagers aspire to be but most ultimately fall short of: witty, poignant, meaningful, completely and utterly in love in the most perfect albeit realistic way. And this is what I love about this book.
He writes what we want to be.
And that, I think, is why so many people love this book. It is a beautiful fantasy. Do we really, when faced with such disastrous situations as mortality, illness, pity, faith, do we really want to slip into the mediocre abyss of platitudes and false cheerfulness? Of course not, because it's all tied back to really wanting to matter. To notice the universe and maybe be noticed back. We understand that the reason we love cliches and platitudes is because they are so old and so comforting and they give us some shred of hope that maybe they're not complete lies fabricating to give us comfort and hope. John Green gives us the reality: vomiting on ourselves, lost to the ravages of sickness, trying to cobble together meaning out of meaninglessness. He gives us a hero's story; his story gives us meaning, because so many people are reading it and so many people are saying, "Yeah, I want to die like that -- not full of bullshit but full of truth, even if it's a shitty truth".
This is also the grand irony of the book because, as another user on here pointed out in a stunning review which I guarantee you can find in five seconds since it's like the third review on this page, if we have not personally been the dead seventeen-year-old or the one who sat by their side until the end, this is not our story and we have no claim to it. And neither does John Green. He writes it, but it is not his to write. So many of us sit here, perfectly healthy, saddened by the tale of two tragic, cancer-ridden teenagers, feeling these fictional, if resounding, feels. But I don't actually have any close friends or family who have died from cancer. In fact, no one very significant in my family has even died. I am haunted by the lurking possibility of death. I know it is coming. I know it is coming soon. My grandparents have hung on this long, as have my aunts and uncles, growing older and frailer by the day, and my parents, as I watch them slip into the world of the elderly and incapacitated by the crunching wheels of time, but they are going to die. And soon. My husband might die. And soon. I might die. And soon. I'm a teacher, and sometimes as I'm driving I think about what would happen if I slid too far out into traffic, was hit head-on, and died. What would my students say? What would my coworkers say? How long would they mourn? How long would I be thought of?
I knew a girl who died when I was in high school or just into college. How sad is it that I don't actually remember what year it was? I had only met her once, maybe twice. She was the daughter of my mother's boss. It was the beginning of summer. In my mind, she is tall, blonde, and gorgeous, but in a nice way that doesn't make you jealous, just appreciative. She went to a water park with her friends. She hit her head inside the tunnel of a water slide. They thought it was probably not a big deal, but they wheeled her into surgery an hour later at the hospital, and an hour later she was dead. Sometimes, I can't stop thinking about her. And I want her to know that. I want her to know that I, a girl she probably doesn't remember because my mother was one of many but her mother was the only boss and so I would have know of her much more than she would have known about me, think about her regularly. I think about how her life ended early and how I didn't know her but it ripped my world apart a little bit, because she was so young and it was so unexpected. That she made it so that I felt more vulnerable but that that was okay and I want to thank her for that. Pain is important because without it we can't enjoy life. Thank you for that.
I don't really know what my point was in writing this review. To communicate that cancer sucks and there's no good way to write about dying? That no one can ever really capture exactly what each person's experience is and it hurts when someone tries to put forth a claim, an idea, a hope? Yes. But also that if someone were to do it well, John Green came pretty damn close. To say that this book was good? What does that mean? To say that this book made an impact on me? It did, but maybe not as much as it should. Would I recommend it? With a caveat.
My caveat is that this is a paltry attempt at finding meaning in meaninglessness, but that there are beautiful moments, some infinities are bigger than other infinities, and that you will not be able to read this book and not think about your own death. That enough, I think, is worth recommending it, but I think I would also say this: you will find what you want to, and you will find the reflection of how you want to be when you die, but it probably won't happen that way and even though the author tries to hard to not romanticize or heroize or cannonize the sufferings of real human beings, he does. And that hurts, but there's no other way to do it. And John Green tried.
John Green is an interesting author. I did not want to read his books. This always happens to me. I'm an idiot. I don't like to read books that are popular in the ground-breaking, earth-shattering kind of way. I resisted Harry Potter, I resisted Twilight, I learned I had good reason to resist Twilight, I resisted The Hunger Games. . .the list is unconscionably long. I apparently have a problem with people telling me how good a book is and then that I should read it even though as soon as I cave and I'm done with it, I realize that they were right and then turn around and do the same thing myself. But getting back to John Green. He is pretentious. He creates heroes even as he says he is not creating heroes. He gets at what all angsty teenagers aspire to be but most ultimately fall short of: witty, poignant, meaningful, completely and utterly in love in the most perfect albeit realistic way. And this is what I love about this book.
He writes what we want to be.
And that, I think, is why so many people love this book. It is a beautiful fantasy. Do we really, when faced with such disastrous situations as mortality, illness, pity, faith, do we really want to slip into the mediocre abyss of platitudes and false cheerfulness? Of course not, because it's all tied back to really wanting to matter. To notice the universe and maybe be noticed back. We understand that the reason we love cliches and platitudes is because they are so old and so comforting and they give us some shred of hope that maybe they're not complete lies fabricating to give us comfort and hope. John Green gives us the reality: vomiting on ourselves, lost to the ravages of sickness, trying to cobble together meaning out of meaninglessness. He gives us a hero's story; his story gives us meaning, because so many people are reading it and so many people are saying, "Yeah, I want to die like that -- not full of bullshit but full of truth, even if it's a shitty truth".
This is also the grand irony of the book because, as another user on here pointed out in a stunning review which I guarantee you can find in five seconds since it's like the third review on this page, if we have not personally been the dead seventeen-year-old or the one who sat by their side until the end, this is not our story and we have no claim to it. And neither does John Green. He writes it, but it is not his to write. So many of us sit here, perfectly healthy, saddened by the tale of two tragic, cancer-ridden teenagers, feeling these fictional, if resounding, feels. But I don't actually have any close friends or family who have died from cancer. In fact, no one very significant in my family has even died. I am haunted by the lurking possibility of death. I know it is coming. I know it is coming soon. My grandparents have hung on this long, as have my aunts and uncles, growing older and frailer by the day, and my parents, as I watch them slip into the world of the elderly and incapacitated by the crunching wheels of time, but they are going to die. And soon. My husband might die. And soon. I might die. And soon. I'm a teacher, and sometimes as I'm driving I think about what would happen if I slid too far out into traffic, was hit head-on, and died. What would my students say? What would my coworkers say? How long would they mourn? How long would I be thought of?
I knew a girl who died when I was in high school or just into college. How sad is it that I don't actually remember what year it was? I had only met her once, maybe twice. She was the daughter of my mother's boss. It was the beginning of summer. In my mind, she is tall, blonde, and gorgeous, but in a nice way that doesn't make you jealous, just appreciative. She went to a water park with her friends. She hit her head inside the tunnel of a water slide. They thought it was probably not a big deal, but they wheeled her into surgery an hour later at the hospital, and an hour later she was dead. Sometimes, I can't stop thinking about her. And I want her to know that. I want her to know that I, a girl she probably doesn't remember because my mother was one of many but her mother was the only boss and so I would have know of her much more than she would have known about me, think about her regularly. I think about how her life ended early and how I didn't know her but it ripped my world apart a little bit, because she was so young and it was so unexpected. That she made it so that I felt more vulnerable but that that was okay and I want to thank her for that. Pain is important because without it we can't enjoy life. Thank you for that.
I don't really know what my point was in writing this review. To communicate that cancer sucks and there's no good way to write about dying? That no one can ever really capture exactly what each person's experience is and it hurts when someone tries to put forth a claim, an idea, a hope? Yes. But also that if someone were to do it well, John Green came pretty damn close. To say that this book was good? What does that mean? To say that this book made an impact on me? It did, but maybe not as much as it should. Would I recommend it? With a caveat.
My caveat is that this is a paltry attempt at finding meaning in meaninglessness, but that there are beautiful moments, some infinities are bigger than other infinities, and that you will not be able to read this book and not think about your own death. That enough, I think, is worth recommending it, but I think I would also say this: you will find what you want to, and you will find the reflection of how you want to be when you die, but it probably won't happen that way and even though the author tries to hard to not romanticize or heroize or cannonize the sufferings of real human beings, he does. And that hurts, but there's no other way to do it. And John Green tried.
FANTASTIC.
This book made my heart hurt so good. Although being doomed from the beginning, the glimpse at Hazel Grace's life is wonderful. This book is well written and can be appealing to all readers. It is just so good.
This book made my heart hurt so good. Although being doomed from the beginning, the glimpse at Hazel Grace's life is wonderful. This book is well written and can be appealing to all readers. It is just so good.
Not a perfect book; there were some weak spots. But overall a really good read, thought-provoking and—though it sounds odd to say—fun.
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