“That’s the thing about pain,” Augustus said, and then glanced back at me. “It demands to be felt.” (4. 10)
Who among us hasn't been plagued with a serious case of angst? For teenagers, it seems par for the course (all those raging hormones). But it's especially true for the two main characters in John Green's hilarious and heartbreaking cancer-kid novel, The Fault in Our Stars. Brought to us by a master of young adult literature, The Fault in Our Stars will have you laughing, weeping, and perhaps even depressed for a few days after you read it. Usually someone’s worth in your life cannot be measure on a scale. You cannot give it a number between one and ten. Typically you can only say it was mostly good, or mostly not. Then there are the Augustus Waters of the world, who so entirely change your life, their impact could never be erased.
Hazel Grace is just a normal teenager who is bored with life and likes to quote philosophers (no big deal) when she meets Augustus, a grade A hottie. It would be your typical teenage-girl-meets-boy story if it weren't for the particulars of how they meet: Hazel and Augustus first lay eyes on each other at a support group for kids with cancer.
This is a love story in the bleakest sense. Usually when teenagers fall for each other, it's all exhilaration and excitement and promises of forever. But even though Hazel Grace and Augustus experience that kind of giddy obsession with each other, their relationship is, well, a little complicated by their medical statuses. You see, they live in an era where they've been able to slow the progress of their tumours, but not totally get rid of them. So for kids like Hazel Grace and Augustus, the future is one big question mark.
More than anything, this book is about coming to terms with your own mortality. All the characters in the book handle it in different ways: there are glass-half-full support group kids who try to get in touch with their spirituality and