The Fault In Our Stars - John Green

My sister passed this book on to me and it has fast become my favourite book, I’ve since run around feverishly recommending it to anyone and everyone and have subsequently concluded that I am a serious late comer to this whole John Green obsession.

The Fault in our Stars was actually first released in January 2012. On the mere announcement of its title in June 2011 it shot to the top of both Amazon and Barnes & Noble bestseller lists. So clearly I have been rather slow off the mark. Forgive me, I’m an English Literature student - put simply, 30 weeks of compulsory reading a year. But the important thing is that I did finally get round to reading it, and it proved the perfect procrastination to revision for my 2^nd year exams.

Written in the first person of Hazel, a teenage girl with terminal cancer, this book was always doomed to end in tears. And I have to admit, for me, it did. A whole 45 minutes of them. But despite its hopeless premise, this story remains unpredictable and truly gripping throughout.

Having been forced to go to cancer support group by her loving but suffocating parents, Hazel meets the effortlessly cool, exceedingly intelligent, philosophical, and obviously drop dead gorgeous (albeit slightly arrogant) Augustus Waters…..did I hear someone say Edward Cullen? I’ll admit, when I first started the book I really wasn’t into it, I did feel it was a complete Twilight type, which obviously I adored slightly too much when I was younger (who didn’t?), but in retrospect is a just a slightly shallow, badly written book with pretentious characters. At first I found Augustus and Hazel’s quick-witted banter similarly unrealistic and slightly irritating, but oh how quickly I realised how utterly wrong I was.

This book is not just a superficial adolescent, angsty love story; the cancer plagues the story in a tragic but engrossing way. You’re forced to simultaneously deal with the gritty reality of the constant side effects of actually living with cancer and the dark humour the characters are driven to find in their impossible situations. For me, cancer is no longer just this terrible ominous monster; it is also, for the characters suffering, a routine, an everyday life that they just have to contend with. Perhaps this is just the ignorance of someone who has been lucky enough never to have a direct experience with cancer, but I think John Green deals with it in an important way for any reader.

Whilst the cancer pervades the entire story, and is a constant, tense presence, it does not drown the captivating, endearing love story of Hazel and Augustus. At heart this book is a deliciously soppy-in-a-good-way tale that made me physically grin and smirk on behalf of Hazel in certain (most) parts. Augustus’ one liners made me feel all fluttery and nervous and I guarantee they will have the same effect on ANYONE. I’m not ashamed to say that I fell so utterly in love with him that, having conjured him up so visibly in my head, I was CERTAIN that I saw him across the street just a couple of days after finishing the book. Alas, it was not him, seemingly just a side effect of my post-TFIOS-depression period. Warning prospective readers: this period lasts a while. For me, this is the true sign of a brilliant, beautifully written book, when even after finishing, you can’t get the characters out of your head, and you physically miss them as if they were your best friends. The best consolation I had was a boyfriend called Gus I could pretend was the wonderful Augustus Waters, in a strictly non-creepy way….obviously. Perhaps a slighter better consolation for the rest of you may be the announcement of a film on the cards. Although I am slightly apprehensive, as we all are, of my new favourite characters being physically brought to life without me being in COMPLETE CONTROL, I am certainly excited to see how Hazel’s hilarious, philosophical, metaphysical observations will be brought onto the big screen. 

Greed satisfaction scale: I was left craving much more of these characters and feeling less than full, but in retrospect this is what the most talented of chefs strive for: the perfectly sized meal that doesn't fill you to that sickening level but leaves enough space to retain it in your memory for a long time to come.

Read it now: get it here