D's July Review: The Fault in our Stars

The Fault in our Stars by John Green
Synopsis (as taken from Goodreads): Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 13, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumors 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.

D's Thoughts:
Back for more? Great! I've got an amazing book to tell you about today. This isn't a co-read, this is just my opportunity to tell you about one book I read this month that was simply amazing.

How did I find out about this book? Let me tell you, I've been a huge fan of Vlogbrothers for a while. At one point, toward the beginning of the summer, I spent a week doing almost nothing but watching the works of John and Hank Green (mostly Vlogbrothers, but a bit of Crash Course as well). Several of the videos mentioned John's books, of course, and that's when I decided that I had to read as many as I could get my hands on. TFioS just happened to be the first one that I found.
And oh my gosh, was I overjoyed!

There's just so much to love about this book, so I guess I'll just name as many as I can think of and hope this paragraph is coherent. 1) Hazel Grace and Augustus had some of the most thought-provoking conversations ever, and I simply adore things that make you stop and consider your life choices. 2) The flirting in this book isn't gross or way overdone. Boys, take notes. 3) The alternate storyline of Hazel's favorite [unfortunately non-existent] book is actually related to the main plot, and even brings up another one of those huge, thought-provoking moments. Without spoiling it, one of the characters in the fictional book is thought to either be powerful or a complete con. We never discover which, we just have to decide. I didn't realize it until later, but it's a metaphor about the belief in God. When I realized it, it literally blew my mind...okay, misuse of literality (a humorous motif in the book) but nonetheless. 4) The metaphor of stars is gorgeous, but not completely overdone: essentially, Green questions the validity of the famous Shakespeare line, "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves." Is there fault in fate? The characters seem to think so: “But it is the nature of stars to cross, and never was Shakespeare more wrong than when he has Cassius note, ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves.” Is that so? That's up to you to decide. 5) The last line was yet another nod to Shakespeare and his way of ending comedies versus tragedy. While I won't spoil it for you, it's rather brilliant.

Honestly, there wasn't ANYTHING I didn't like about it. The figurative language was gorgeous. The plot was never boring, but it wasn't so jam-packed that I got lost. As one might figure from a cancer book (though this is not just any cancer book, in which the main character overcomes grief to set an example for us all, which is yet another thing I love), I cry just thinking about the last few chapters. The emotional ties the author makes available to the reader are so strong that there have been posts on Tumblr asking people "to call her Hazel, not Hazel Grace, because only Augustus Waters is allowed to call her that". For fiction, it sure feels real.

In my albeit not-so-long lifetime of reading, there have only been four full-length novels that kept me so engrossed that I read the entire book in one sitting. The first was Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata, the second was Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the third was The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. The fourth, I am overjoyed to say, was The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. On our scale of 1 to 5, though I wish I could rate it the largest infinity of all the infinities, I rate it a 5.

Standout Quotes (there are quite a few!): 

" “I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is improbably biased toward the consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it-or my observation of it-is temporary?” 

“What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.” 

"I'm in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you."
“My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.”

"I can’t talk about our love story, so I will talk about math. I am not a mathematician, but I know this: There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There’s .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbound set...But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn’t trade if for the world. You gave me forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.”

And now, my absolute favorite, which has helped me a lot in my own life recently: 
"You clench your teeth. You look up. You tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but a Sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry, and you say all of this to yourself while looking up at the ceiling, and then you swallow even though your throat does not want to close and you look at the person who loves you and smile.” 
Album to listen to while reading this book: "The World Won't Listen" by The Smiths

Best wishes,
D