The Fault in Our Stars by John Green Review

Name: The Fault in Our Stars
Author: John Green
Publisher: Dutton Books
Release Date: January 10th, 2012
Format: Hardcover
Buy the book on Amazon
313 pages

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.

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My Review:

Every time I read another John Green book, I become even more confident when I say: I love John Green!  Not only is he an absolutely brilliant author who has the ability to write beautifully and wittily while still creating the most realistic and lovable characters, but he is also able to craft the most amazing plots that make you laugh in one sentence, and then want to cry in the next.

There really are not enough words in the dictionary to describe how much I loved The Fault in Our Stars.  I literally laughed aloud while reading this book.  Yes, that's right: I laughed aloud while reading a book about kids dying of cancer (and I promise, I'm not a horrible person).  That's how amazing John Green is.  Hazel and Augustus had truly remarkable dialogues, each feeding off of the other to construct the most ridiculous sentences and the most fantastical ideas imaginable; it was impossible not to laugh, and keep laughing, as the pages flew by.  Whenever the two of them were together, your choices were either to laugh, or to cry, and I was grateful to do both.  While their romance was slow (with the distinct possibility of cancer taking Hazel's life at any moment, she tried fruitlessly to keep Augustus from feeling too much for her, though he truly did not care, as shown by when he later told Hazel, "It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you") it was deep and all-encompassing love nonetheless.

Besides my love of Hazel and Augustus's soft but powerful romance, I was also amazed by the complexity through which both characters viewed the world.  As cancer victims, neither one of them spent the novel focusing on their "inner strength" to outlast their cancers, nor were they so entirely focused on death that they could not live their lives as they wished; instead, both Hazel and Augustus lived their normal (albeit, neither character was really "normal") lives, contemplating both the good and the bad in the world.  And I loved that about them.

John Green's brilliant story also had a wonderful plot that kept me flipping the pages faster than speeding bullet, but it was really the two main characters that made this book one of my absolute favorites ever.  Hazel continually discussed how the universe wanted to be noticed, just like Augustus wanted to be noticed, striving to live an important life that others would remember.  And while these fictional characters may not be remembered by everyone in their fictional world after their inevitable deaths (after all, everyone dies, reaching oblivion eventually), I know that I will never forget neither Hazel nor Augustus.  Both kids were two of the most amazingly and complexly crafted characters I have ever read about; I have a feeling that they will remain in my head for quite some time, more like real people that I once knew rather than characters in a book.

At some point, it becomes really hard to write a review of a book that you loved so much, and even harder to explain why you loved it.  All I can say is that this is one book that I will read over and over again, not only just to laugh and to cry, but also to simply catch a glimpse of these wonderfully unique characters and the crushingly haunted world that John Green created.  If you have not read this bestselling, award winning book, I suggest you do so right away; and while you're at, pick up some other books of John Green's, too.  You won't regret it!

My Rating: