The Fault In our Stars
The Fault in our Stars
by John Green
My rating* – 3.9
This review contains spoilers.
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.-Book Description courtesy GoodReads
When I realised the book was “a cancer book that was not a bullshit cancer book” I had to steel myself against all that I knew was going to come.
Many times during this book, I thought: Who is John Green and why does he think he can write a book like this? What authority does he have on this particular subject matter? And why use children with cancer? What’s his end game really?
There were times I felt like I was reading “A walk to Remember” if it were written by Diablo Cody. Gus and Hazel are teenagers but they don’t behave like teenagers. They act and speak like John Green. The supporting cast: parents, friends etal…all act and speak like John Green.
Thankfully, John Green is cool in his own nerdy, witty way. But let me warn you now, if you are planning on reading this book, make sure to have Google near at hand. When I say Green is a nerd…I kid you not. He expects you to know what a harmartia is or Zeno’s Tortoise Paradox. I felt like I was getting a vocabulary lesson, and when I thought about it, this is a good thing since this is a book for young adults. They could learn something reading this book. I certainly did.
I gave this book an almost 4, because it was better than ok, but not the best book ever. I liked that he made the distinction between a “cancer story” and “your story” because there is a huge difference. I also really identified with Hazel’s mother as care-giver. We the Care-givers have a really tough job and often don’t get the chance to really own what we are feeling. No matter how devastated you are, you are not the one with cancer. You are not the one who is dying. We have to put it all aside for our loved ones.
My favourite lines are:
- What a slut time is. She screws everybody.
I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things
That’s the thing about pain…it demands to be felt
Grief does not change you. It reveals you.
What I didn’t like about the book, is what I liked about the book. It was pretty bittersweet because it was a sharp reminder of my own experiences with cancer. This tells me, that this is an adult story being played out by teenagers. Green also claims that it is “not a cancer book” ..but it so is. The whole draining of Hazel’s lungs (a side effect of the drug/cancer) was way too close to home for me. Green described the whole process in detail. This happened with my mother, we had to drain her lungs regularly. And it was one of the first indications that her cancer was back. The parts where Gus planned his funeral and then he had Hazel and Isaac write and share their eulogies…my mother planned her funeral down to the clothes she wanted us to wear (she wanted us all in white). At this point, I was back to thinking…what gives him the right?
It is a tear-jerker, but a lot of my tears had to do with some very adult questions these teen characters were pondering and I was thinking about them in the context of my mother and what she must have been feeling and thinking and asking herself.
Oh and there is teenage sex.
This book explores some pretty heavy stuff – love, death and living a life worth living. At the end of our lives, no matter how much time we had, we all want to know that it was worth it…our choices were worth it. Green’s end game? “A short life, can be a good life.”
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*my personal quality ratings are the scores I give books on a scale of 0-5 based on my personal opinion of a book. 0 is “birdcage liner” and 5 is “off-the-hook good”
