The Fault In Our Stars

Warning: Contains spoilers.

This book was so well written. It is very real, while still giving us an unbelievable love story. John Green writes this in the first person, as a character name Hazel Grace Lancaster, and he gives her the narrative as the sarcastic teenaged girl she is supposed to be. She is a young girl living with cancer, and has an oxygen tank as a constant companion. She is a simple, yet lovely person with a great, sarcastic sense of humor and a caring heart.

Hazel is sent to support group by her mother who thinks she is depressed and needs to make friends. This is torturously boring for Hazel until she meets a new face named Augustus Waters, and eighteen year-old with a prosthetic leg. Now is when I tell you that this is the character that I completely fell in love with. Like YA books always do to me, this one made me regret my misspent youth. If I could go back to my teen years, I would seriously save my heart for a guy like this. He is witty and charismatic, very positive, and sees the true beauty in everything.

The love story between Hazel and Gus (I may name my future son this now) is powerful, yet real. They have a devotion and an intense need to protect one another, as well as hold the other up.

SPOILER AHEAD……..

The twist in this book, I actually did see coming, but I still think it was a good move on John Greens part. It was a good way to show how Augustus, who loved Hazel so intensely, really did give her the strength to endure the realities life with or without cancer can bring us. In tern, she taught him that your life, is only as big as your life, and does not need to be experienced, or remembered world wide to leave a powerful mark.

I really enjoyed the way John Green put emotions into words, such as the quote “Pain demands to be felt” and how Hazel said each time she was in the hospital, she never rated her pain as a “10” as she says, “I was saving my 10”.

This book was so well put together, with enough reality, enough emotion and enough humor to make it enjoyable for me. It is easily making my top ten list of favorite books, which isn’t easy because reading is all I do.

A Little about the Movie….

I could tell just by the trailers that this movie was going to follow the book well enough for me to go see it. I was not sorry. Unlike most film adaptations, this one did the book justice. I have to give praise to Ansel Elgort who played the role of Augustus. He gave an amazing performance and seriously brought Gus to life the way I envisioned him as I read the book. The important parts were left in, and only the parts that could be afforded to be left out were not included. If you’re a fan of this book, the movie is definitely worth seeing!

Me encanta porque no pretende ser algo que no es, es una historia corta, que te rompe el corazón en unas partes, levanta tu espíritu en otras y a veces te fastidia. Es literatura juvenil pero no por eso se eviten de darle una oportunidad.

here comes a time in every readers life when you find THAT book. THAT book that makes you laugh, makes you cry, makes you sob and smile. THAT book that is SO very brilliant it surpasses anything and everything you have ever read. THIS, is THAT book.

I have successfully made it my 24 years (almost 25 soon, eep) by only crying in 3 books up to this point. The first was when I was in middle school. The book was called A Child Called It: One Child’s Courage to Survive by Dave Pelzer . That book ripped my heart out and I’ve never fully recovered. The second and third books that made me cry were Slammed and Point of Retreat by Colleen Hoover. A beautiful story that also ripped my heart out and slowly pieced it back together.

I can now add a fourth.

John Green says it best in this quote about Hazel’s (the main character) favorite book, which could so easily be used to describe The Fault in Our Stars:

“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 unless and until all living humans read the book.”

This man is a mastermind, because although I ended the quote before he finishes that paragraph, that part made me go back to once I was done reading because that was exactly how I felt.

Here is the summary of the book:

“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.

Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning-author John Green’s most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.”

Let me just tell you how much this story impacted me. I just copied and paste the summary into this post, and I’m already tearing up. Seriously.

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/But in ourselves”

So when I was told to read this book, I was told I would cry (no one told me I would be sobbing, I mean, “I have the hiccups, can’t catch my breath, haven’t cried this hard since a grandparent passed away, since I dumped the last jerk” SOBBING). So when the book starts out, and I’m laughing, I have to text my best friend Nicole, and ask “Why am I laughing?”

The book starts off with Hazel at a support group for people with cancer, or who is in remission from cancer. And in this support group, she meets Augustus.

“Look, let me just say it; He was hot. A nonhot boy stares at you relentlessly and it is, at best, awkward and, at worst, a form of assault. But a hot boy… well.”

Yeah. He is hot.

So they start forming a bond, a bond of friendship, that later transfers into love. You meet Issac who is Augustus’ friend, who also has cancer, and who loses an eye. You follow Augustus and Hazel in their journey to meet Hazel’s favorite book’s author and site see Amsterdam.

“The beautiful couple is beautiful”

WAIT! Did I just end a review with one paragraph about the ACTUAL book and a couple of quotes from it? YES I DID. Why didn’t I keep reviewing it?

BECAUSE I CAN’T WITHOUT GIVING AWAY THE BOOK!!!!

Yeah. I know. I stink.

So go! Go buy it, go read it.

I’m not going to tell you to bring tissues when you start it like people told me though.

I’m going to tell you to keep a mop handy, maybe even a bucket for all the tears you’ll be shedding. I’ll also tell you to NOT read this book at work. I hit all the funny parts at work, but I am so glad I didn’t hit the sad ones while I was there. I think my co-workers (who are mainly men towards the end of my day) would have been FREAKED OUT by a hysterical woman. That would have been me, the blubbering woman crying about a book.

FAVORITE HIGHS WHILE READING:

“I told Augustus the broad outline of my miracle: diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer when I was thirteen. (I didn’t tell him that the diagnosis came three months after I got my first period. Like: Congratulations! You’re a woman. Now die.)

“Okay” he said after forever. “Maybe okay will be our always”

“My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations”