“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together until all living humans read the book. And then there are books like An Imperial Affliction, which you can’t tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like betrayal” The Fault in our Stars
The Fault in our Stars is both kinds of books: a book that wraps you so far in the story that you never want to leave and just continue reading for days stuck in world that is not your own. It leaves you needing to know who dies and whose lives will never be the same. It is also a book so good that you cannot just simply sit back as other’s lives continue in their same regularity not knowing of a world so close they can just open a book and escape to it.
Hazel Grace Lancaster is just an average 16 year old girl who watches America’s Next Top Model marathons and fights with her parents. Except the difference is that she has terminal lung cancer, was pulled out of school at 13, and recently diagnosed with clinical depression. Hazel’s parents worry over her incessantly, and force her to attend a support group for cancer patients in the basement of a church. At first Hazel detests the fake positivity that the leaders try to instill in everyone. But as in all tales of despair, it seems prince charming comes to her rescue. Hazel falls for Augustus Waters, a quirky seventeen year old amputee. Augustus and his one eyed friend Isaac open Hazel’s eyes to not shutting down when your life seems to be falling to pieces, but to take every opportunity to live life at its fullest. Augustus and Hazel both bond over Hazel’s favorite novel An Imperial Affliction, a story that shows a cancer patient’s life that seemed to get better, but the ending was curiously unfinished so there was no way to know if the protagonist dies or not. Augustus uses his one ‘wish’ he claims every dying person has: to fly himself and Hazel to meet the writer of the novel Peter Van Houten.
It is not simply a tale of only tragic love; the author, John Green, thinks out every part of the story, every place, person, and event has a purpose and is an illusion to another story. On John Green’s website he stated that the title was inspired from the famous line in Julius Caesar, when Cassius says, “the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars. / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” (Act 1, Scene 2) This means that problems with our lives’ are not to be blamed on fate, but that we are responsible for everything that happens in our lives; ironic because the entire book is about events no one can control like cancer and death.
The Fault in our Stars is a fantastic book that anyone could get pulled into; you will want to read really fast so you know the twist ending, but read slowly so you don’t finish the book too soon. I give the Fault in our Stars five stars. Fox is hopefully producing the movie sometime next year.
Sources:
Johngreenbooks.com