THE FAULT IN OUR STARS by JOHN GREEN.
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.
- Back Cover Blurb
- Back Cover Blurb
Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.
- First Sentence, Chapter One
- First Sentence, Chapter One
See 'My Thoughts' below for my Memorable Moment
SOURCE ... On my TBR pile for so long I have forgotten.
READ FOR A REVIEW? ... Yes.
- 8 of 12 books read for the 2018 Mount TBR Challenge.
MY THOUGHTS ... Disappointed, utterly disappointed. Of all of the 'cancer' novels out there this must be the one that moved me the least.
Yes, I'm unashamed to say the main thing I'm looking for in a book of this genre is how much it moves me; how many tissues I go through; how red eyed and snotty nosed I'm left and in this respect, yep, I was disappointed, well and truly disappointed.
After that comes ... the characters.
Alas unable to connect with them. I'm afraid I found main protagonists Hazel and Augustus unrealistic. Yes, cancer forces (many) teenagers to grow up ... and grow up quick ... but the conversations between these two read more like the conversations between, well, lets just leave it as like the conversations between those much, much older. Oh! Then there's the fact that, rightfully or wrongfully, whilst I felt I should be feeling their pain; empathising with them, for much of the time all I could think about was how angry I was. Angry that, amongst other things, Hazel felt ...
"A nonhot boy stares at you relentlessly and it is, at best, awkward and, at worst, a form of assault. But a hot boy…well” (Pg 9)
Which brings me to ....
Dun dun dun ...
The romance.
Not a believer in Love at first sight to begin with ... Lust at first sight? Maybes. But love? Nah. Besides which I don't think it was so much love as them bonding because they both had cancer, Hazel because, well, he was hot and she had cancer. But mainly, once again, my main gripe was the narrative ...
"I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you.” (Pg 153)
Now I don't know about you but neither I nor Mr T (and he works in a college full of teens) found this realistic.
And its not the only thing either ...
And its not the only thing either ...
I took it off and let Jackie stick the cannula in her nose and breathe. (Pg 46)
Urgh! Hasn't she heard of cross contamination? To 'stick' a Breathing Tube in the nose of some random child, really? And as for a mother to allow some random stranger to let her child try said random stranger's breathing tube? I ask again, really?
When all is said and done though, essentially what I really, really disliked about the book was the author setting both characters up as heroic rather than, at least one of them, as a terrified teen facing up to their own mortality.
