Book Review: The Fault in Our Stars

I just read a book about cancer. I didn't choose to read it; I probably would never have read it on my own. (I had to read it for book club.) But I'm glad I read it all the same. 

Now, if you're anything like me, you would say, "who would want to read a book about cancer?" You have an excellent point. However, you need to trust me on this one. While the characters have cancer, the book isn't about cancer. It's about living and loving and not letting the cancer "kill" you until it kills you. It's also very honest.  

The basic story is about Hazel, a 16-yr old girl who was diagnosed with Thyroid cancer a few years before. The cancer spread to her lungs. She was in very bad shape until she was put on an experimental drug that stunts the cancer. Now, as the book takes place, she's not in good shape (she'll never heal), but she's not in terrible shape either. 

She meets a boy at cancer support group. As Hazel describes, Augustus Waters "was a tenured professor in the Department of Slightly Crooked Smiles with a dual appointments in the Department of Having a Voice that Made My Skin Feel More Like Skin.” They have a fun, innocent teenage relationship. Hazel pulls back for awhile because of her condition, but then "[she] fell in love like the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once."

Augustus encourages her to follow her dream and search out a hermit author who lives in the Netherlands and wrote Hazel's all-time-favorite book. The book includes Hazel's parents, her mother who treats every holiday (from Bastille day to half-birthdays) as if it were Christmas, and her father who cries too easily. Isaac, Gus and Hazel's friend from support group loses both eyes to cancer. (Bad blind jokes ensue. The first thing Hazel says to Isaac: "I've gotten really hot since you went blind.") Gus's parents fill his house with positive "encouragements" stitched on every pillow and pasted on every wall. I really fell in love with Hazel, with Gus, and with their relationship. The book is a little idealistic about how good and pure their relationship is, but I'm not complaining. I loved that it wasn't a superficial teenager infatuation, but honest love, based on mutual respect, admiration, humor and compassion.

This book will make you laugh (out loud) and it will probably make you cry. (p.s. You probably won't want to read this on a bus/train/public place for this very reason.) However. 

You should read this book. It reminds you that life is beautiful and tragic. 

But mostly beautiful.

Here are a few quotes, to give you a flavor for the writing:

Hazel, when her mother forced her to get up hours before their flight:

“I had a moral opposition to eating before dawn on the grounds that I was not a nineteenth-century Russian peasant fortifying myself for a day in the fields.” 

Hazel, explaining that they discovered her thyroid cancer just weeks after she got her first period. 

"My body was like, 'Congratulations! You're a woman! Now die.'"

Hazel and Augustus: 

“What's that?"
"The laundry basket?"
"No, next to it."
"I don't see anything next to it."
"It's my last shred of dignity. It's very small.” 

Hazel and Augustus:

“We sat out there in silence for a minute and then Gus said, ' I wish we had that swing set sometimes.'
'The one from my backyard?'
'Yeah. My nostalgia is so extreme that I am capable of missing a swing my butt never actually touched.'
'Nostalgia is a side effect of cancer,' I told him.
'Nah, nostalgia is a side effect of dying, ' he answered. Above us, the wind blew and the branching shadows rearranged themselves on our skin. Gus squeezed my hand. 'It is a good life, Hazel Grace.” 

I've got another book review coming, because I read two books in the past two weeks. (Not sequentially, but simultaneously as a result of library due dates , book club scheduling and poor planning on my part.)