Skip to main content

Book Review: The Fault In Our Stars

   
The Fault in Our Stars
 
 
 
I wish I had enough words to describe this book to you. I'll just start with giving it this rating:
 
From GoodReads.com:
Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 13, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours 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.
 
********************
Let's just dive right in, shall we?It sounds a little despressing, I know. Cancer, kids, it just doesn't get much sadder than that. And usually, I tend to shy away from sad books.
 
 Unless it's about an unrequitted love. That stuff reels me in everytime. But this. This book is amazing.
 
Hazel is a child who is old enough to see her future and she is way to pessimistic for a 16 year old girl but how could she not be? She lives in the reality that she is dying. The way Hazel lives in matter of fact, which makes me sad. The machines that keep her breathing at night, the medicine and the way her parents look at her...they are all her reality.
 
And then she meats Augustus after being forced to go to a cancer support group.
 
And thus is a love story I'll never forget.
When does love become more than just love?
Here, in this story, is the answer.
 
I always thought I would describe a book the best that I could when doing a review, so that you would get a great idea about the plot and whether or not you'd want to read it.
But I can't really describe this book. It's sad, but hopeful at the same time.
Hopeful because the emotion is so real that it makes you realize that hope, love, friendship and healing from hurt are all possible.
 
The most heartbreaking part in the book is when I realized why Hazel was hesitant to let Gus love her back.
"I'm like a grenade, Mom. I'm a grenade and at some people I am going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualities, okay? I just want to stay away from people and read books and be with you guys. There's nothing I can do about hurting you, you're too invested. Just let me please be here."
 
She didn't want Gus to love her because she knew he'd lose her. She wanted to save him the pain. I guess that's a pretty good indentication of young love. I wanted to tell her, that  even then when you know you'll probably lose someone, it's still worth it to love.
 
Just read it. Here are my highlights/favorite passages:
 
"I liked Augustus Waters. I really, really liked him. I liked the way his story ended with someone else. I liked his voice. I like that he took existentially fraught free throws. I liked that he was a tenured professor in the Department of Slightly Crooked Smiles with a dual appointment in the Department of Having a  Voice That Made My Skin Feel More Like Skin."
 
"You gave me forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful."
 
"I fell in love like you fall to sleep. Slowly, and then all at once."
 
There are many more, but the contexts won't make sense unless you read it.
 
Happy reading, friends.
 
 


Comments

  1. that book looks like a good read, i think i am going to look on Amazon to check it out.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is my best friends favorite book! I will have to share with her your review, she will really enjoy it :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I absolutely love this book (and really, everything John Green). It is so sad and beautiful and amazing. It really is so hard to describe! You did a great job though! :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I lovelovelove John Green. His books always has those perfect lines that make you think, "Wow. I wish I knew how to use words like he does."

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm always looking for great books to read, so I will definitely have to check this out!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sounds like I've found my next book. Well, after the two I've already got lined up. :/ Thanks for the review! It sounds amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thank you for the review. I have been eyeing this book for awhile now but sometimes you just need a good referral to take the plunge!

    Tara

    http://tarabelle-adropofink.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  8. This one's top on my Christmas list. I've been waiting forever to read it but didn't want to do it on audio and haven't had the time to pick up the actual book. Soon, I hope!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I adored this book and sobbed hard the last 30 or so pages.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hmmm... this book looks really good! I am your newest follower and was kinda maybe sorta hopin' that you'd hop on by and follow me back!

    xoxo-
    Sarah
    www.enjoyingtheepiphany.com

    ReplyDelete
  11. stopping by from your guest post on raising reagan. Can't wait to start following you.!

    ReplyDelete
  12. This book looks great! I'm so far behind :(
    Glad to see you are getting some new visitors to the blog!! Yay!

    Lanaya
    www.raising-reagan.com

    ReplyDelete
  13. I read this over the summer. I absolutely loved it. I think I will reread it too! :)

    ReplyDelete
  14. You need to drink some wine, that glass is FULL

    ReplyDelete
  15. LOVED the book. I shy away from sad ones too, but I'm so glad I read this one!

    ReplyDelete
  16. GREAT book but a tearjerker for sure!

    ReplyDelete
  17. I heard that this book a really good one. Your review convince me to buy the book like asap.
    Anna Czarina

    ReplyDelete
  18. I really loved this book, I also liked 'Me, Earl and the Dying Girl' which again sounds really depressing but is actually quite funny

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book Review: The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware

Ruth Ware always delivers when it comes to interesting and layered characters. The Turn of the Key is a thrilling account of Rowan Caine's experience as a live-in nanny in a luxurious smart home unlike anything she has ever seen. This mystery is the epitome of the saying "if it's too good to be true, it probably is" because even though moving into the home of the Elincourts is an upgrade from her tiny apartment and dead-end job, it comes at a steep price. Every chapter, there is something suspicious that kept me wondering if anyone in this suspenseful book was telling the truth. Which, is obvious in the first page because Rowan is writing a letter to a lawyer, from jail, because she's being held for murder. Who is Rowan? Did she come into the Elincourt's lives for a reason? She should have known something was wrong on the day she interviewed, when one of the children warned her to never come back. With a house full of surveillance cameras and parents who ar

Historical Fiction Recommendations

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jennifer 📚 (@thats_what_she_read) on Jul 12, 2019 at 4:01pm PDT Raise your hand if you’re in the mood for a great  #historicalfiction  ! ⁣ randomhouse   #partner ⁣ } ⁣ The last HF I read was  # Montauk  by Nicola Harrison. It was a nice vacation! ⁣ ⁣ Here are the next two that are on my list: ⁣ TIME AFTER TIME By Lisa Grunwald (out now)⁣ A magical love story, inspired by the legend of a woman who vanished from Grand Central Terminal, sweeps readers from the 1920s to World War II and beyond. ⁣ On a clear December morning in 1937, at the famous gold clock in Grand Central Terminal, Joe Reynolds, a hardworking railroad man from Queens, meets a vibrant young woman who seems mysteriously out of place. Nora Lansing is a Manhattan socialite whose flapper clothing, pearl earrings, and talk of the Roaring Twenties don’t seem to match the bleak mood of Depression-era New York

Book Review: The Reckless Oath Me Made by Bryn Greenwood

When a young woman is facing an unsteady future, layered on top of a very troubled past, the last thing she has time for is the strange young man who speaks in Middle English and is always following her around. Zee ignores him just fine until her sister goes missing and everything in her life is uncertain and she has no choice but to trust Gentry Frank.  "Zee may not be a princess, but Gentry is an actual knight, complete with sword, armor and a code of honor. Two years ago the voices he hears in his head called him to be Zee's champion. Both shy and autistic, he's barely spoken to her since, but has kept watch, ready to come to her aid."  The layers of this book are peeled away one by one, making it a deeply emotional and transient novel. Zee's character is complicated- she is sharp, deeply scarred but unabashedly brazen and brave. What I loved about her most was how trusted her gut even when she didn't have solid ground to stand on. Her mother is a hoard