The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

Well, I did say I was eager to read another John Green book after reading An Abundance of Katherines and The Fault In Our Stars is commonly known as John Green's most beloved and acclaimed novel. I must say, it did not disappoint.

The novel follows a sixteen year old girl, Hazel Grace Lancaster, through her friendships, relationships and treatments. Hazel suffers from Stage 4 Thyroid Cancer, which handicaps the use of her lungs and requires that she is always hooked up to an oxygen tank. Her disease gets in the way of her life, and slowly becomes her life. She was taken out of high school before the 'Miracle', an unlikely treatment that saved her life. Never reintegrated into normal teenage life, Hazel Grace finds her only company within books, particularly An Imperial Affliction by Peter Van Houten.    

Worried for her daughter, Hazel's mother sends her to Support Group in the Literal Heart of Jesus. There she meets the like minded and Isaac, who is soon to lose his sight to cancer, and the gorgeous Augustus Waters, who has already lost his leg to osteosarcoma. Although she is attracted to Augustus, the more she learns about him, the more she is scared to get close to him. She doesn't want to hurt him when she dies. 

Hazel sees herself as a 'grenade' that will explode when she dies, and wound all the people closest to her.

Throughout the novel, Augustus and Hazel's relationship blossoms. Despite Hazel's reservations, she finds herself falling in love with the one-legged, stunning, seventeen-year-old boy. They both know how hard cancer is, and they both realise that the 'never stopped fighting' image that is painted of young cancer victims is not accurate. They are there for each other, to support one another through the struggles of such a ravenous disease. 

What I liked most about this novel, is the blunt view that it put forward about death. It showed the reality of the emotions that cancer sufferers feel, displaying that, most of the time, they really do just want to stop fighting. It also gave the stark truth that the world is not a wish-granting factory, and that bad things happen to good people. That's just life. 

John Green is a wordsmith of the highest caliber, creating characters that pull you in, and creating the most beautiful imagery in one sentence. One of my favourite lines, is from Augustus, when he is claiming that he is not a writer: 'My thoughts are stars that I cannot fathom into constellations.'

I finished this book in a day, just because I had to know where the story was going, and how it would end. The clever thing about this novel, is that it does have a concrete ending, but there are still millions of questions that I would ask of John Green if I ever had the pleasure of meeting him. 

From me, this book gains a Cosmic rating. This is because the sheer magnificence of this book cannot be described with mere Earthly expressions. After reading this book you'll never be able to regard the word 'Okay' in the same way. 

Happy Reading!

Review By Lauren Goodfellow