Customer Reviews

The Fault in Our Stars

5 star:		(422)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Spoiler free!

Although his brother Hank might argue that the real "fault in our stars" is that our sun contains limited amounts of hydrogen, which will cause it to eventually run out of the only fuel source capable of supporting its mass against gravity, thereby expanding until its outer shell envelops our tiny planet and consumes it in a fiery death, I think it is more likely that John Green's title refers to a line from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:

"The fault, dear Brutus is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings." Caesar (I, ii, 140-141)

What does this quote mean and how does it relate to a novel about two kids dying of cancer? I'll explore that below.

The Fault in Our Stars is the story of two 16-year-olds who meet at a cancer support group. Hazel Lancaster, the narrator, is afflicted with terminal thyroid cancer which has ravaged her lungs enough to necessitate the use of an oxygen tank wherever she goes. It is during a support meeting that she is introduced to Augustus Waters, whose leg was claimed by a malignant bone tumor and who soon becomes the object of her affection.

When I learned of the plot of this novel, I was initially a bit turned off. I'm reminded of a comment a friend made when I asked her if she wanted to go see the movie 50/50, upon which she exclaimed "who wants to go see a movie about people dying of cancer?" I couldn't come up with a satisfactory response, and we settled for a two-hour movie about the competitive world of robot fighting (which still caused me to shed a tear). So why would anyone, especially young adults, want to read about "cancer kids?" As Hazel herself states in the novel, "cancer books suck." But "The Fault in Our Stars" isn't about cancer, and it's not about death. Cancer is an important subject in the book, but it's not nearly as important as the characters. The disease is mainly used as a vehicle for moving along the development of Hazel and Augustus. In the absence of teen wizards, dystopian death races, and swooning vampire/werewolf feuds, it allows us to view the protagonists in a more complex setting than the traditional high school drama. It also forces the characters to grow up much faster than they should, which I think is important for Green's audience as well as his needs as a writer. The "young adult" label should not be cause for dismissal to older audiences. As equally evident in his previous novels, Green's writing is not dumbed-down in an attempt to cater to a misguided adult notion of the intelligence of teenagers. While Hazel and Augustus certainly share in the same adolescent interests as many of their peers, their dialogue is written at a level that betrays a deeper level of maturity. Amidst trips to the mall and countless video game sessions, the characters expound on subjects in life that everyone faces. While it might seem strange to hear a 16-year-old use words like "cloying" and "sobriquet," this is par for the course in a John Green novel. And strangely, it works very well (provided you keep a dictionary handy). Even though I initially balked at reading a "young adult" title (I'm well into adulthood), I realized that just because a book is marketed toward adolescents, doesn't mean it can't be enjoyed by those outside that niche. I'm hesitant to make the comparison, but "The Fault in our Stars" bridges the age gap in the same vein as Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. It contains content and themes thoroughly relatable to a young audience, while being presented in a way that adults will appreciate.

Green's characters always come off a bit stiff to me and start off sounding like pretentious jerks who are trying too hard to grow up, but I always warm up to them and end up relating to them by the middle of the novel. Gus was no exception. However my opinion of him changed as early as chapter 2, and I knew as soon as I heard him have a conversation with Hazel about their counselor's incorrect usage of the word "literally" (a fact that had literally been bothering me since it was mentioned in the first chapter) that I knew we could be friends. The likeability factor of these characters is one of the reasons the rest of the story can be so heartbreaking to follow at times. Even though I was fully aware from the beginning that Hazel's condition is terminal, she doesn't behave in a way that constantly reminds me of that fact. Instead, her sarcastic wit and outlook on life draw me to her as someone I could easily be friends with (if only there wasn't that problem of her being a fictional character). From very early on, I'm sucked into an emotional attachment to the characters in the story that made it very difficult to actually put the book down (and one of the reasons I will probably read it several more times). Returning to the titular quote above, although it is fully explained in the novel, I think the line from Julius Caesar is also appropriate as a title because Hazel does not let her ultimate fate determine the course of her life.

I thought Green's last two solo books, Katherines and Paper Towns, were pretty good, but they didn't capture that sense of awe I felt after finishing his first novel. And again, I think that's because I've seen such a huge change over the years in Green's ability to connect his characters to the reader. The Fault in our Stars returns me to that era and I'm reminded of just how good of a writer he is. I do not know if it will win the same Young Adult Fiction awards Alaska received, but I do know it will be regarded by myself and many more as one of, if not his best work to date. Regardless of their literary interests, I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is a fan of great writing and character-driven stories.

It should also be mentioned that Green personally signed all 150,000 copies of the first printing of this novel. So if you are buying it soon after release, your copy will almost certainly be autographed.

John Green's other novels include:

Looking for Alaska (2005)

An Abundance of Katherines (2006)

Paper Towns (2008)

Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances (coauthored - 2010)

Will Grayson, Will Grayson (coauthored - 2010)

DFTBA

I've read a lot of books, but this is one of my all time favorites; that's not something I can say about very many books. I'll make it simple; I'm a fifteen year old teenage boy. When I usually read a book, I toss it aside and move on to the next one. And, like most teenage boys, I am not very emotional. At the end of this book, I cried. Not just a few tears either; I was full on bawling my eyes out. That's how good this book is. I promise you, unless you have a heart of stone, you will love this book.

This is almost entirely just copy and pasted from an immediate reaction post I made on a friend's Facebook wall, and I would have written a separate review but I think there are already more than enough for everyone to see why they need to read it.

"I think I need to reread it; I know I sped through some parts too fast to fully appreciate them. It was...more than I expected, already, though.

For a few days, I was kind of secretly anxious as hell. When I got it and actually held it in my hand, I was really excited but also afraid it wouldn't live up to the seemingly unfair hype we gave it. I mean, we didn't know that much about it anyway. He had an idea of who two of the characters were. We knew what the cover looked like. We knew it'd be autographed.

We just had faith in this fantastic writer. And....it was well-placed. I laughed, I cried, I was cliche as anything. Whatever man. It was a profoundly /good/ book, and the characters were remarkable, and I can say with no hesitation that it was the best book that I have read in a very very long time, and definitely the best he has published, ever. I hope to see students studying these in English someday. And I'll be damned if it doesn't earn him the right to attach more stickers to the book covers, this time shiny and metallic and very very award-y."

Buy it. It's fantastic.

As a 40 year old male, I'm not ashamed to admit I like John Green's books. In each he seems to capture the essence of adolescence that remains with us into adulthood. In my favorite book, An Abundance of Katherines, Green expertly captures the struggles of a gifted teen in ways that speak to what it is like to be a gifted adult.

It The Fault in Our Stars, Green takes on teenagers facing terminal cancer. Hazel Grace Lancaster is a teen living on borrowed time, with lung cancer and only a short time to live. She meets Augustin "Gus" Waters, a cancer survivor, at a support group and soon they fall in love. They bond over Hazel's favorite book, "An Imperial Affliction", by the fictional Peter Van Houten. The book tells the story of a girl with cancer and ends suddenly when the girl dies, and both Hazel and Gus long to learn what happens next. As their romance blossoms, they conspire to meet Peter Van Houten, who lives in the Netherlands.

While I cannot speak with experience, Green seems to expertly capture the feelings of children with cancer, who are strong not because of some great inner power, but because they have no other choice. Gus and Hazel, and Gus's friend Issac all have authentic voices and relationships with their parents that feel true. There are many times when Green, with a few lines of dialogue, brings tears to your eyes by simply detailing the words kids and parents exchange when faced with such terrible fates.

Where the book falls short to me Peter Van Houten. On the page, he never seems more than a plot device to hinge the book on. While they help set up some wonderful sequences is Holland, the interaction with the character himself seems false, and only a way to setup the twist in the middle of the book and an ending that, without spoiling it, seems overwritten and false.

Still, Green has a wonderful way of capturing the mindset of certain types of teenagers that feels timeless. The Fault In Our Stars is worth the read. Just bring a tissue.

In The Fault in Our Stars, author John Green tackles the major questions of existence with humor, honesty, and grace. The narrator (Hazel) is dealing with a terminal form of cancer and yet this is not a story about dying but rather a story about truly living. Through the lives of the two main characters Green shows us that we are all in fact terminal, but that we largely decide how to spend our brief moments of life. Most lives are not triumphs or tragedies purely, but they are filled with moments of both.

I would heartily recommend this novel to a wide audience far beyond the Young Adult crowd. Personally, I became aware of Green through his YouTube efforts and eagerly awaited this book. My only regret is that I read it at one sitting, but I simply could not put it down. A masterful, coming-of-age story. Wonderful and poignant. Laughter and tears. I will definitely be passing this book on to the readers in my life.

I have been literally waiting (correct use of literally)for this book for half a year. I can't help but say those trite words, "It made me laugh. It made me cry." There was alot of crying and even more laughing, but the crying was completely heart-wrenching. There was a bit of time that I was not sure that I would be able to finish the book over a single line that was just too hard for me to read. I have never felt that strongly about a sentence in my life.

Now, I have to say that I have a special bond with the subject matter because I am the mother of a cancer survivor. He is 13, almost 14 and has been NEC (No evidence of cancer) for a very long time. But the fear never goes away. It lives in a part of your mind that you try not to notice.

I cannot say what the sentence was, because it would be a spoiler and above all I want people reading this review to read the book. So no spoilers, but the sentence is at the top of page 112 and it was said by Hazel's mom.

So, please read this book. It is not only good, but important. It is hard to find books that are both these days. The subject matter is true, engaging and terrifying...it will make you laugh, but it will also make you cry. DFTBA

...but that's a John Green novel for you. I was only 7 percent through the book, according to Kinderella (my Kindle) and had to stop immediately and do my dishes, or I knew I would be sitting there all night. I was also moved to send John Green an e-mail immediately, telling him how brilliant his writing is and how much I learn from reading his books. (I am a 48-year-old woman, a YA-author-in-progress, who reads everything, but has a special love for good YA fiction.)

I loved Hazel and Augustus pretty much immediately, and the book (which I picked up again after doing my dishes and proceeded to read until I was finished) took my emotions on a journey as wild and unexpected as Augustus and Hazel's. One thing I love about John Green's books is how they can't be characterized. His books are always so much more than the sum of their parts. My husband asked me what the book was "about," and all I could respond was, "Everything."

That being said, I did not give the book 5 stars, only because I felt - with all due respect - that it lost track a bit in both tone and momentum towards the end, when the plot grew a bit more contrived than I've come to expect from Green. I only give 5 stars to books that leave me feeling like, "This was the best book I've EVER read!" even for a little while. I didn't feel that way, but I did feel like I'd been on the rollercoaster with Hazel and Augustus, and I was left pretty much a red-faced, snot-nosed mess.

I adored some of the secondary characters as well, such as Isaac and Hazel's parents, and even the walk-on character of the waiter at the fancy Dutch restaurant. Drinking champagne will forever be all the sweeter because of him!

I've read quite a few excellent books about living and dying this past year, but none have made me think and feel as much about both as "The Fault in Our Stars."

Part one: The Book.

"The Fault in Our Stars" is a work that defies its genre in all the best ways possible. The silly boycrushes and superficial gossip that most writers think makes up 99% of high school steps aside for a beautiful, honest, heartrending story of life, death, and love. I can only compare this book to Markus Zuzak's award-winning "The Book Thief" in terms of sophistication and depth.

Hazel and Augustus are two of the most fleshed-out characters, particularly teenagers, that I have ever read. Their story is a joy and a privilege to read. Furthermore, their love is more real than anything else you will ever find on the Young Adult shelves.

Note- Read it alone if you can. People give you weird looks when you aren't sure if you're laughing or crying.

Part Two: A Response to Several Reviews

This bit is written in response to those who find the dialogue unrealistic, particularly for wee little teenagers. To them, I'd firstly like to request that you stop being condescending. Does every teenager speak like that? No, of course not. But please don't assume that means all teenagers are incapable of using words with more than two syllables, or lack the brainpower to be witty, insightful, and existential in conversation.

Having spent the last five or so years in this nebulous "teenagerdom", I believe I may be qualified enough to judge the "teenageriness" of Green's dialogue. Do the characters sound like teenagers? No. They don't sound like iCarly, or Bella Swan, or Troy Bolton or the majority of teens in pop culture.

But they do sound like me, and my best friends, and the people I surround myself with in high school. They sound like people, people I'd like to meet. Like the books defiance of the Young Adult Genre, Hazel and Augustus defy the conventional teenager model, resulting in some of the most honest and real characters I have read.

Part Three: A Letter

Dear John Green,

Thank you.

Sincerely,

A Young Adult

It would be so easy to give this book a five-star rating that had no meaning. John Green is a very interesting man who, outside of this specific novel, does wonderful things to teach, entertain, and decrease world suck. I will admit I was very tempted myself to give his most recent novel, A Fault in Our Stars, a five-star rating because of this, because he deserves it. He went to great lengths to make sure that each of his readers had an untainted reading experience, which I appreciate and really did improve the experience of reading it for the first time.

"But," you think to yourself, "you did give the book a five-star rating." Indeed I have given the rating the book alone deserves. This book has absolutely outdone all of the, admittedly high, expectations I had. I don't want to go into detail about the specific things I loved about The Fault in Our Stars because it seems almost too personal to share in a book review. The things I've taken away from this book are the sort of quite lessons and insight that you carry with you and talk about to your close friends deep in the night.

The Fault in Our Stars is not a tear-jerker in that it manipulates your emotions to find purpose, but it brings tears to your eyes for the sheer beauty, ugliness, pain, joy, unfairness, triumphs, and pitfalls. I spent most of the time reading this book in tears, I think tears of mourning lives left unlived and the great injustice disease is.

I feel that until now I did not understand, outside being aware of the abstract idea of it, that another person's existence is as real as mine. John Green has done me the great favor of making this important fact vivid and real to me. I cannot recommend this book enough. It is absolutely wonderful and I thank John Green, Esther Earl, and all of the individuals who came to have some influence on The Fault in Our Stars' success. Not a monetary success or in fame for the author, although those are sure to come, but a success at being real, being loved, and teaching me to be a better person.

I am not an emotional reader. Hallmark commercials, Disney movies, beautiful songs, but books never really have that effect on me. I read them, I think about them for a few days, and then I let them go. I've never been swept up into the world of a book enough that I feel the triumphs and tribulations of the characters.

Until this book.

I can't accurately describe the life this book has taken inside of me. I read it through Thursday night, staying up hours later than I should have; I woke up three times in the night, heart racing, caught in the emotional impact of the book; I thought about it all through my Friday morning errands and class; I listened to the audiobook (though not in its entirety) when I returned home. Two days later, I am still having a emotional reaction to parts of the book, sometimes out of the blue. I feel like there are these long-reaching aftershocks, and every time, they twist my belly into knots.

Green stated that he'd sought to write an epic in miniature. I cannot think of a better term for this book. It's unlike his others, it's unlike anything I've read, and I am not sure I can carefully set it in one category or another. It is beautiful, it is haunting, it is funny and tragic and overwhelming.

If you are a nerdfighter or simply heard of the hype surrounding this book, believe it with a grain of salt. Believe it with a voice in the back of your head telling you to be cautious. Because the first two chapters we've all heard are nothing like the remaining 23. And all 25 are nothing like Green's other books, but in the best and most wonderful way. I feel like this is the writer Green was meant to be, the one we've all expected to emerge since Looking for Alaska.

Entertainment Weekly picked "luminous" as their descriptor, but I would disagree.

My word is "resonant", and I am still feeling the afterglow.