The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green was a very different book. Now-a-days you often read books that are really sappy, or are hard to picture true, but this book mastered the art of being REAL. There was no sugar coating, there was no exaggerating. It was a plain and simple take on life.

               

 The story starts our introducing you to 16-year-old Hazel Grace, a cancer patient. She has had cancer for a very long time, and it is basically just a matter of how long the doctors can keep her alive. She has to live her life with an oxygen tank, because she can’t breathe right. She goes to Cancer Support Groups (for the sake of her mother) and tries to keep a happy face, although she has somewhat lost care for life. She was this way, until she met Augustus Waters. Augustus is a very handsome and kind young man, who has only one leg. He had to have a leg amputated, when cancer invaded his leg. But, he has been NEC (No Evidence of Cancer) for more than a year. Hazel meets Augustus in the Cancer Support Group, and she takes interest in him almost immediately. The two soon fall in love, and spend a lot of time together. Hazel is still struggling with cancer, but she finds it easier to manage with someone like Augustus at her side. The two even go to Europe to meet one of their favorite authors, who wrote a book about cancer that Hazel absolutely adores. Things soon take a turn for the worse, as Augustus finds out that tumors have invaded his entire body. He goes to get an MRI, and he “lit up like a Christmas tree.” Hazel soon watches the love of her life slowly die in front of her eyes. Augustus loses his strength, and becomes terminally ill. Hazel then has to take care of Augustus, while she is still dying herself. Augustus Waters died earlier than Hazel, leaving her alone.

This book is quite a tear-jerker, I must say. I found myself heartbroken many times while reading this book. There were points in this book, though, that were honest and true outtakes on life. Augustus Waters had a very special look on life. He, in some ways, kind of reminded me of myself. He would not let himself deny the simple pleasures in life. If there was a pretty girl, he would look at her (and if he hadn’t, he would never have met Hazel). He was also very big on metaphors. He would buy cigarettes and put them in his mouth, but not light them. He liked the feeling of having a form of death so close to him, but not letting it harm him. Hazel looked at life as just a thing. It was only one thing in a world of oblivion. She also said a quote, which was “Everything is just a side-effect of dying.” Which, I have to completely agree with. All of us are dying, all the time. Every second we live, every breathe we take, we are slowly dying. She says that happiness, sadness, pain, everything is just a side effect of dying.

 There was another quote in this book that I also found intriguing. Hazel undergoes many challenges in her life, most of which involve pain, emotional and physical. “That’s the thing with pain. It demands to be felt.” Pain is one of the most extreme emotions, because it demands itself to be felt

To close, I will state one more quote, from Augustus. “We don’t get to chose if we get hurt in this world, but we have a say in who we get hurt by. I like my choices.” Life is a funny thing. Some people say we need some rainy days to appreciate the sunny ones, but “suffice it to say that the taste of broccoli does not in any way effect the taste of chocolate.” I really liked this book, and I think one of the main reasons I did was because of how honest it was. I strongly recommend this book. To anyone.