The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
pages: 313
released: January 2012
publisher: Dutton Juvenile
cover love: ♥♥♥♥

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. (from goodreads)

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON 3/16/2013 ON BOOKSLIKESTARS.NET

Review:

So I decided not to review TFIOS the way I usually would review a book. Without a doubt, it’s an incredible piece of literature, (we all know this) so I’ll save myself the effort of trying to explain the what’s and why’s that made it incredible (because nothing I say will do the book justice anyway) and just give you the basics on how I felt while reading it:

* Up until page 71, I didn’t really like/get/understand what was so great about TFIOS. I know, you must think I’m a crazy no-soul of a person but I just couldn’t get engrossed in the story.

* After page 72, TFIOS started to grow on me. ALOT.

* I never wanted to smack a character so hard in my whole life than when I was reading pages 191-193, particularly when that son of a bitch Van Houten cruelly expresses his opinion on fictional characters:

“This childish idea that the author of a novel has some special insight into the characters of a novel…it’s ridiculous. That novel was composed of scratches on a page, dear. The characters inhabiting it have no life outside of those scratches. What happened to them? They all ceased to exist the moment the novel ended.”

As a lover of books, especially fiction, characters are to me as real as air or a person sitting on a train next to me. And for someone to say they are mere scratches on paper just stabs my heart over and over again.

* Page 214 is where I had my “HOLY SHIT OH GOD NO” moment.

* From pages 215 – 247, all I did was ponder my existence and wonder why this world is so fucked up. And wanted to grab Mr. Green by the shirt and ask him why he was doing this to me. And to them.

* I read the last paragraph about 20 times:

“She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.”

John Green is a genius. He seriously is. The man knows how to get in here (points to heart) and squeeze. 

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