The Fault in our Stars – Book Review
Posted on May 2, 2014 by Ana Amador in Entertainment
Julie Contreras
Ana Amador
Crimson Chronicle Reporters
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is 313 pages of wittiness and infinite genius. This young adult novel is written from Hazel’s point of view; a 16 year old girl who suffers from stage 4 thyroid cancer, that has spread to her lungs, ever since she was diagnosed with it at 14. The first few pages are already packed with information about Hazel, like for example how she loves watching tv, reading, and according to her mom spends too much free time thinking about death. Hazel’s parents don’t really become a part of the story until later on when its impossible to imagine the story without them.
Presumably Hazel’s story doesn’t really start until one day an undeniably hot, funny, and confident guy walks into her weekly support group meeting; to which her mom forced her to go to; and blatantly flirts with her. Augustus Waters at first the attractive stranger quickly introduces himself, and appears amazed at Hazel. Augustus, nicknamed Gus, was diagnosed with osteosarcoma (a fatal disease) and finds his way to Hazel’s support group because of his blind friend Isaac who has already been going there for a while now and is even somewhat friends with Hazel.
In this book the characters personalities are extremely real and everyone from Hazel to Augustus’s older sisters (who aren’t very present in the book) seem to be main characters. Because every characters’ personalities seem so whole, almost as though they have a life outside of the book, their interactions are even better. Reading this book is like watching reality tv both in the fact that it does in fact appear to be real and in the fact that you can’t take your eyes off of it.
John Green , the author , did a wonderful job with these characters because not surprisingly his inspiration to write this book came from meeting a real cancer patient; who like Hazel was in her teen years. Before writing the book Green already had a fairly large fanbase from his channel on youtube, where he video blogs with his brother. He also has fans and experience writing from his previous and first novel Looking for Alaska; also a young adult novel about teens.
Every page takes you deeper and deeper into the life of all of Green’s characters and with each page you turn you get more and more attached; which you already know can’t be good when you’re reading a book in which both the main characters suffer from a fatal disease.
As you get to know the characters more so do they get to know each other.A special trip planned by Augustus brings them closer together. Hazel knowing Gus has a crush on her and she herself having a crush on him is scared and is left thinking about what will happen if she dies prematurely. At this point in the book Hazel makes the genius but grim analogy of comparing herself to a grenade, stating that once she explodes (dies) she’s going to hurt/scar everyone around her. Thoughts and questions like these fill this book to the brim. Ideas like, the inability of death, pain, and happiness, every emotion all the characters go through, are thoroughly explored by the author bringing you closer to the characters and the story as a whole.
It’s no surprise that this breathtaking New Yorks Best Seller is becoming a motion picture; coming out June 6, 2014. The first trailer was released January 29th and had 3 million views in the first 24 hours , the trailer showed popular romantic scenes including Hazel (Shailene Woodley) and Augustus (Ansel Elgort).
The Fault in Our Stars, nicknamed TFIOS by it’s many loving fans, takes the reader through the unimaginable ups and downs of the world of cancer and most specifically teenagers diagnosed with cancer, or any disability that might make them different. Everything about this book is amazing and if you think too much about it you very well could get stuck on the ideas, problems, and thoughts this book presents.This book was, is, and always will be amazing.
