SPOILERS!

livingonavenueq:

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (2012)

The latest novel from John Green is about a 16-year-old girl with cancer and you can tell from that description alone that it’s going to be a tearful reading experience.

This post contains spoilers.

I was really happy with this one. Finally, we have a female protagonist, not some teenage dude constantly longing for a girl he can’t have (LFA, Papertowns, Abundance… it just started to get old), and she’s smart and funny (with a sense of humour not unlike Green’s past main characters, I guess). Maybe it’s because this is another John Green book and I’m overthinking here but there were parts that reminded me too much of LFA or Abundance. I don’t know why that bothers me. Anyway, bullets of things I liked!

• Peter Van Houten! I loved his character. He’s a jerk but he also helps Hazel and Gus realize a lot of things about life.
• The prosthetic leg, the oxygen tank, the blindness, the dying. To quote G.R.R. Martin through Tyrion, “And I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples and bastards and broken things.”
• Underwear that don’t match. Not that guys ever notice those things.
• Depression is a side effect of dying. Everything is.
• PETER VAN HOUTEN! He is such a douchebag but uuuugh, there’s just something about this author who gave Hazel such insight on life but turned out to be a big disappointment. I just really liked him, okay.

Despite welcoming you to the narrative with a very optimistic “everything is a side effect of dying” message, I still ended up feeling hopeful for Hazel after I put down the book. Is that weird? Maybe. And though, like Hazel, I do want to know what happened after those last words, I’m not going to bother John about it and just stick with this hope instead.