Book Review: The Fault in Our Stars - John Green

 

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is a fictional book about Hazel, a young girl who has thyroid cancer. However, this is not the typical cancer book about a typical cancer patient. Hazel has a specific type of cancer, where the tumors are present, but not growing. She isn't in remission, but she is not deteriorating either.

She has a different type of emotional outlook on life as well. She does not want to impact people's lives. She believes that she will die soon and she wants to reduce the number of people who will grieve about it. She believes that diminishing the affect of her death would make the world a better place.

Hazel's parents do not feel the same way. They want Hazel to experience life and form relationships with new people. At the beginning of this novel, they force Hazel to start attending a support group for young people with cancer. Hazel doesn't see this support group as very supportive. At the beginning of each session, the leader reads a list of all the people in the group who have died since the group was formed. As you can imagine, this is a fairly long and depressing list. Next, people vent about their frustrations and dealing with cancer. This support group doesn't necessarily help Hazel, but it does give her the opportunity to meet one of the most important people in her life.

She met Gus at the support group, and they end up becoming more than the best of friends. They trade books and connect over the journey to discovering the end of an influential story. This journey evolves from finding the answer to their questions, to breaking down emotional barriers and discovering each other.

 

Overall, this story makes you think about What If? What if I had cancer? How would I react? Would I still try to form those important relationships, or would I go through life alone? Can you really trust people, or do they just pity you for your disease? When you don't have cancer, these questions don't come up. People don't think about them. This book makes you think about them.

If you want to read a happy go lucky story where everything turns out to be ok, then this story is not the one for you. If you want to read a story that will make you think and reconsider how you live your life, then this one might work.

I give this book 5 stars. It made me cry and it made me laugh. An author who can evoke both of these emotions from me has serious talent. The Fault in definitely makes my Book in the Nook status!

Cheers,
Millie