John Green’s newest book, ‘The Fault in Our Stars’, centers around a 16-year-old thyroid cancer patient, Hazel Grace, who goes through her dull life dealing with the fact that she knows she is dying.
Because of her “crap lungs”, she carries an oxygen tank wherever she goes. After being diagnosed with clinical depression (as anyone would, if they were to know they were dying), her parents force her to attend a dreary support group for kids with cancer. There, she meets 17-year-old Augustus Waters, a cancer survivor with a prosthetic leg who teaches her that making a mark on the earth is still important regardless of how long you will live. She’s afraid to become too close to him, let alone anyone else, as she knows her impending death will be like a “grenade” that will destroy the people who love her. As their relationship progresses, they deal with the hardships of cancer and all of the “perks” that go along with it.
This book is one of John Green’s best to date. It allows readers to really understand what a teenager with cancer has to go through. We learn how pity and showing how sorry we feel for that person just makes them feel different and worse, and how all they want is to feel like a normal, healthy person. This book shows us that cancer patients, despite being sick, can still feel joy, love and heartache, just like everyone else. Even with the sad idea of young death and terminal diseases, this book is extremely moving and filled with humour. It is fit for anyone looking for a good book that is impossible to put down.
Paul Kandell • May 7, 2012 at 2:50 am
I’m putting this book on my list. Thank you, Natalia!