I'm so far behind in reading this book. So far, in fact, that there is really no point in writing this review. Everyone and their grandmother has read this book, by now . . . It has been on the New York Times bestseller list for at least 35 weeks, it is still #16 in books sold on Amazon (over a year and a half after its release), and filming of the movie is about to begin on the 26th of this month! This book has been read by nearly everyone and I have nothing that I can really add that nearly everyone hasn't already screamed, while in sorrow-filled tears of joy, that it is an amazing book. In fact, let me present some information about the world in relation to this book in a way that I think both Augustus Waters and Hazel Grace would appreciate:And with that, I'll get to the review . . .
Publisher's Summary:
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.
I find this terribly inadequate. So I went looking somewhere else and found what I thought to be such a ridiculous summary on the New York Times bestseller list that I had to put it in here. I think Hazel would have found it hilarious:
A 16-year-old heroine faces the medical realities of cancer.
Granted, they have little space at all to describe books on that list . . . but it made me smile.
My review: 5/5 bubbling stars in a champagne flute
Okay, fair warning, I just finished this book, like 25 minutes ago. I usually let my mind settle for a bit on a book before I write a review, but for some reason I just couldn't wait on this one. I had done a heroically good job of creating a complete blind spot in regards to this novel; an effort I only reserve for things I know in my gut I will adore for years to come, once I finally indulge in experiencing them. Because of this effort, I was pretty much unprepared for everything this novel offers. For example: I knew someone would die, but not whom. I am so glad I did, because this book hit like a ton of bricks (which, by the way, hits as hard as a ton of anything else). From start to finish, I was captivated by the characters, their voices resonant with life; John Green's writing, which is always sublime; the pacing, which is languorous when needed and feverishly quick when desired; and the emotional hits are profound, with not a single punch pulled. Not to trot out the tired old, "I laugh, I cried" schtick, but I did. A lot! This novel is so full of humor and joy and love and intense feels-of-the-sad and everything brilliant. And, of course, it is full of enough geekish moments to make anyone with a bit of nerd in them squeal in delight; it is a John Green novel, after all.
Green's characters are brilliantly constructed. Both Hazel and Augustus are people I want to be friends with, and Isaac, too. They are real in ways that very few characters my reading has allowed me to walk alongside manage. They may live only in the short time while we read those pages, but they reverberate and linger within us after we turn the last page. They spark all the sweetly tender and exquisitely painful emotions, memories, fears, and hopes in all of us. I love them, and I suspect almost everyone who reads the book loves them, as well. One of the characters mentions near the end that they miss their future . . . I do too.
I love that Hazel's parents are not non-entities. I love Hazel's mom almost as much as I love mine. I lie, I love my mom way more, but you get the point. Her exuberance and presentness (for my lack of a better word) is appreciated, even when Hazel (and the reader) is embarrassed or annoyed by it. Many young adult novels have a great lack of parents, arguably as a narrative necessity; but, their addition and presence in TFiOS is great. They are not the perfect examples of humanity that many parents wish they were - that many parents assume they should be presented as in media; Hazel's parents are flawed people with their own strengths and their own weaknesses. They are representations of parents that ring true. At least the kind of parents we hope everyone has. Loving and protective, unappreciated at times, and not the immovable rocks to lean on they would like us to think of them as (that WE would like to think of them as) . . . in short, people. I think this is one reason (of many) why this book resonates with adults almost as much as it does teens.
I am glad that Van Houten was kind of given an explanation for why he reacted to Hazel and Augustus as he did. I am also glad that said explanation didn't absolve him of his douchery.
The plot was grand, with its emotional highs and lows making me feel like I was on the ride of my life. The depths of heartache inspired by moments in this novel were overshadowed only by the staggering heights of joy.
I am not immune to expressing emotion, as many individuals with a Y chromosome would like to think they are, but I think I have a decent level of emotional control. However, I shouted out in triumph and cried quite unabashedly at many points in this novel. I has cheering as Isaac smashed trophies, I cried as he struggled after his surgery, I raved when Hazel and Augustus were going to head to Amsterdam, I joyously cried when they kissed . . . and, of course, I was an absolute wreck for the last quarter of the book when the shoe finally dropped. My face flush with emotion, eyes red and watery, cheeks wet with tears, and my throat burning with the need to loose a torrent of sadness. I still am a wreck, 40 minutes after turning the last page. But happy that this book exists to give me opportunity to share the emotions and experience of Hazel and Augustus. An experience somehow magnified by the hundreds of thousands that have also been on that journey, even though I read the book largely in solitude. John Green is incredible, as always, and I hate him for putting his characters through such pains but love him for giving them such joy. I feel enriched for having had the experience. Which, in the end isn't that the reason for literature or art in any form? To enrich and inform us in ways both intellectually and emotionally?
As the characters in this book come to find, there are many sizes of infinities and we all experience many. I am profoundly appreciative of the little infinity I found in reading this book . . . and I hope you are too.
P.S. I am totally going to have to buy this poster now: . . . yup, ordering it right now. <3
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