"The Fault in The Fault in our Stars"

This past weekend, I read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, really just to see what the hype was all about. All of my friends had read it, it was all the rage on Pinterest, and it wasn't very long, so I thought,"Why not!" It's about a 16-year-old girl named Hazel who has cancer. She goes to support group since her mom thinks she should go and be social instead of living her life, or whatever's left, as an introvert. She ends up meeting a seemingly attractive boy named Augustus Waters, who lost a leg to cancer. They start hanging out together, along with their friend Isaac who had eye cancer and is now blind. They talk about their cancer and ultimately grow closer to one another. They also talk about death, what they believe happens after death, and Augustus' fear of oblivion. Augustus takes her on a "date" to a statue called Funky Bones , which is kind of ironic in a sad way because he has bone cancer. Augustus decides to take Hazel to Amsterdam to meet her favorite author, Peter Van Houten, who wrote the book she has read a million times and currently lives there. When they reach Amsterdam, the problems really begin.

I thought that the ideas and discussions were interesting, especially when Augustus and Hazel are talking about things like death and oblivion and their favorite book, An Imperial Affliction. It was refreshing to see two intelligent teenagers talking about things that actually mattered, and not about celebrities or anything like that. Teenagers are always portrayed as texting and saying things like "Oh my gosh, he totally just broke up with her, I mean, like, you know..." Green doesn't follow this stereotype as you can see on page 13 when Hazel tells Augustus, "Everything we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this... will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away... and if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that's what everyone else does." I think this quote shows that not all teenagers talk stupidly about stupid things.

It was pretty predictable, though, as I basically knew what was going to happen by the time I had reached the second chapter of the book. You can just take a wild guess when you get there and realize that all of the major characters in this book have cancer. I thought John Green did have a good balance of humor and tragedy, with love and action. Just kidding, there wasn't much action. At points it was hard to keep reading because, as I said, I had a pretty good of what was going to happen. It didn't make it much easier that I was reading at night and was dead tired and just wanted to sleep. It wasn't very encouraging either that the rapid ending couldn't compare to the quality of the beginning.

Everything in the story leads up to the trip to Amsterdam and the problems start after they arrive. I thought the writing of the book followed the same pattern; doing well until Amsterdam, and then not doing well after Amsterdam. There were parts I deeply enjoyed (specifically the ideas like death and an afterlife) and parts that I disliked (such as the almost extreme romance between Hazel and Augustus), leaving me with an overall mediocre impression of the novel.

I had high expectations that were not quite achieved. I wouldn't highly recommend this book (unlike most of my friends that have read it) to anyone in particular, but then again I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading it. I remember it being about $15 at Target if you feel the need to read it, because it's nice to know what everyone's been talking about.