Hazel Grace & Augustus, courtesy of Simini Blocker
Hazel Grace Lancaster is a teenager living on borrowed time. She has terminal thyroid cancer that has metastasized to her lungs, but a miracle drug has prolonged her life thus far. How she chooses to spend her time rereading her favorite novel, An Imperial Affliction, for the dozenth time and watching marathons of “America’s Next Top Model” begins to concern Hazel’s mother, so at her insistence, Hazel grudgingly attends a cancer support group. There she meets Augustus Waters, a handsome, former basketball star who is in remission for bone cancer, and her life is forever changed.
Falling for Augustus is an unexpected gift for Hazel, but it comes with a great amount of hesitation. She worries about the impact her death will have on the ones she’ll be leaving behind. She knows it’s impossible to spare her parents from the pain, but she tries to minimize the amount of damage she causes Augustus by refusing to start a relationship with him. She likens herself to a grenade that will destroy the lives of the ones she loves, but she fails to realize that all humans are all like grenades in each other’s lives. We can’t help but influence and impact each other. When we lose someone who has made a large impact, it does cause pain, but it doesn’t make sense not to love someone just because it might hurt them in the long run.
One of the points John Green drives home in “The Fault in Our Stars” is that nothing in life is permanent, but that doesn’t make it less important or special. Augustus has trouble with this concept. He wants his life to mean something; he wants to leave something of permanence behind, a scar. But their love story teaches us that there is a profound beauty in the temporary. No love story can last forever and theirs is no exception. It only exists only as long as they live, and that is dictated by something completely out of their control. But it’s no less beautiful because it was short-lived.
I read this book in January, and I’m afraid time hasn’t made it any easier to express everything this book meant to me. The achingly beautiful prose (“My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations”), combined with characters who become so beloved, mixed with the special brand of wit and humor that John Green brings to all his novels makes this a truly exceptional book. Despite all the discussion of cancer, death, and dying, at its heart, “The Fault in Our Stars” is a love story. Hazel and Augustus are so amazing and so real, and John Green did a wonderful job focusing on their personalities and relationship and not their respective illnesses. They aren’t defined by their cancer.
I ran the gamut of emotions while reading this, laughing, crying, laughing through tears. It was honest, funny, heartbreaking, exhilarating, and immediately became one of my favorite books of all time. This is a story that everyone should and must read.
Memorable Quotes:
“You read a book and it fills you with this evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.”
“I fell in love the way you fall asleep: Slowly, and then all at once.”
“I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the voice, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know that the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.”
“I wouldn’t mind, Hazel Grace. It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you.”
This is the second review of this book I’ve read in the past 20 minutes so therefore I’m taking that as a sign I need to read this. Will be stopping by the drug store on the way home for a box of tissues!
So many tissues, so many tears! But it’s well worth it. I hope you enjoy it! 🙂
One of the things that I loved about TFioS, if I may borrow the acronym Green uses on Twitter, is that it deals with that heady, teenage, never-gonna-get-any-better-than-this love that is rampant in YA novels, but for Hazel Grace and Gus, it’s not going to get any better than that, so they make the most of it.
And the thing is, I should have seen it coming, but I was so focused on Hazel. It’s like in The Book Thief, when you know what’s going to happen (and Zusak even tells you straight out!) but you ignore it in favor of what’s going on at the moment with Leisel. The clues are all there, but you conveniently ignore them.. or at least, I did.
I knew it was about kids with cancer, and it still hit me like a punch to the gut.
Great review, Jenn!
Thanks for reading, Erin. <3
That's what I like best about teen literature. Even in a book like this, where there should be no hope, there it is. I also know exactly what you mean about the book taking you by surprise. Like you said, all the clues were there, but I didn't see what was going to happen at all.
That was exactly my analogy as I finished it (tears dripping off my nose, of course): It was like The Book Thief. Except it wasn’t. It was grand and haunting and even now I can almost cry thinking about it.
Oh, this review gives me chills. I need to read this. I love John Green, but I’ve been afraid to read it because of the content. Looks like I’ve been missing out!
You really should. It’s terribly sad, but it isn’t hopeless. Ultimately, even though I cried a lot, it’s a book I’ll read again and again because it’s a beautiful book.
We completely agree with your take on TFIOS, and especially the message about how temporary things are no less valuable or beautiful. 🙂
There’s a line in Steel Magnolias that comes to mind, “I’d rather have a moment of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.” The book is awesome because Hazel Grace and Augustus make the most of that moment of wonderful.
I absolutely agree with your review. I fell in love with Hazel and Augustus. I loved Hazel’s anxiety and Augustus’ bravery. I loved that he carried an unlit cigarette in his mouth and that she was obsessed with the inconclusive ending of the fictional novel An Imperial Affliction. I cried, so much, when I read TFioS. I wanted their love story to go on forever, while knowing that it wouldn’t because of their conditions. I recommend this book to anyone that asks. And even those that don’t.
I just finished TFIOS last night and it was amazing. I’m just sorry that it took me so long to read it. You are right that it is a story that everyone should read. I think I even dreamt about Augustus, Hazel, The Support Group, and their trip to meet Peter Van Houten. This book took me through the gamut of emotions as well. I think over these last two days as I read the book, I kept crying everytime I looked at my 17 year old daughter. I will be thinking about this book for days (as I always do over great books)! Thanks for your great review!
OMFG! It literally took me, like, a day to read “The Fault in Our Stars.” And, while I tend to have a habit of crushing on boys from books, I think that I totally just fell for Augustus. Do you know how ENRAGED I was to find out that “An Imperial Affliction” is not a real book? I straight up screamed when the book was over, flipping pages, looking for more. *SPOILER ALERT* I always thought that it would be Hazel who went first, but when Augustus explained how he “lit up like a christmas tree” for his scan, I sobbed out loud in the middle of study hall. Luckily pretty much no one heard, but still… then when he said to Hazel “you called me Gus” I started crying uncontrollably for no reason. It just seemed to me that at that point their relationship took on a different dynamic and that made me extremely emotional because I don’t even know and he died and I cried some more and I used up a box of tissues and I usually don’t cry when I read books but I did when I read this and I’m not using punctuation because all I can think about is AUGUSTUS and I… *broken sobs* *SPOILER OVER* But really it was a life changing book, and I’d read it all over again. If you haven’t read it, READ IT.