The Fault In Our Stars

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.



When I heard this book was coming out as a movie, I was became interested in reading it. And I had heard that it was a tearjerker/devistating/whatever. But it's a book about kids with cancer, so what would anyone else expect? I mean, the moment you pick up this book you know what is going to happen, and you know how it's going to end. I figured that I knew what I was getting in to, and thus, would not cry. WRONG! I had to read the last quarter of the book in our bedroom so I could do the "big ugly sob".

One of the things about reading a novel that is aimed at teens as a person that is in my 30s, is that I find I no longer read it from a Teen perspective, especially when the parents are active roles in the novel. I have made it through my teens and never had a concern like cancer hanging over my head, so I end up relating more to the parents of these kids rather than the kids themselves. I could not imagine how devastating it would be to know that your child will die before you, to watch them waste away and be in pain, and watch them suffer without being at all capable of relieving that suffering. Cannot. Even. Imagine. And hope I never have to.

For some reason, in the last few chapters of reading this book, I kept thinking of the song A Thousand Years by Christina Perri. This song was played at the end of the Twilight Series' Breaking Dawn: Part 2, and at the time I thought it was a great song for the end of that series, but now I think it is far more appropriate for this story. Somehow I feel that Gus and Hazel's love seems more infinite than a pair of immortal vampires... I guess that tells you how eternal and real the love felt in this book.

One thing I was worried about mid-way through reading this book was that it would end the same way that Hazel's favourite book did, and I will give this spoiler, that it doesn't. Thank goodness. Although it seemed fitting for the story in her favourite novel, it wouldn't have fit well into this one.

I really did enjoy it, I would recommend it to others. But the one drawback it had that anything I have read about this book (or the movie that was released June 6th this year) is that they say it's not a cancer story... but it totally is. Although I suppose that might depend on what you consider a "cancer story". To me, a story that is propelled by these kids dealing with their cancer makes it a cancer story. People that think a cancer story is a story about overcoming cancer, or bettering themselves once being diagnosed with cancer (starting charities, bringing attention to it Terry Fox style, etc) would not think of this as a cancer story, more of a love story. So I was expecting something a little different when I picked it up, but I definitely wasn't disappointed by it.

So... anyone up for a movie date?