The Fault In Our Stars was a #1 NYTimes bestseller, and the movie opened at box offices at #1, as well. To be fair, let’s include this: John Green was listed in 2014 as one of the world’s 100 most influential people. It’s a drama, and all good dramas have some humor. But I seriously doubt you will do more than that little breath of air that escapes your nose when something is sorta humorous. The main character is mildly funny in a very dry and ironic way. I suppose that’s where Augustus Waters comes in, but he just adds another layer of self-preoccupation in the disguise of a friendship/love story.Īnd one last note: despite what some others claim, this book is not humorous. I was just longing for Hazel to reach outside of herself. There was never a moment of Hazel’s story (or even her day, presumably) that wasn’t about herself and about cancer. This book falls into that “suffocatingly so” category. YA books are also introspective, sometimes suffocatingly so. And in case you didn’t know the specs for the YA genre, it’s not just about age of characters or a maturity rating. I, for one, could have done without it.Īnother warning of sorts: Everything in this book is about cancer. We’re not talking graphic stuff here, and you see it coming from like 100 pages off… It does make you wonder about what rules you might break if you or your child had terminal cancer. Sorry, but I do not take teen sex lightly. You breeze through the thing and you don’t want to put it down until you’ve finished. The writing does sparkle every once in awhile. On the other hand, it is addictive and full of wonderful moments. The plot is meandering, and you’re rarely sure where you are headed… yet you always sort of know what is happening overall long before you get there. Since this is fiction realism, it didn’t work right for me. Teenagers are portrayed (as is somewhat popular) much wiser, sophisticated, and cooler than they ever are (even for those that have been confronted with tragedy, etc.). I don’t know how much I can expound on this. On one hand, it is full of contradictions, unrealistic portrayal of the teen age group, and lacks a little in the plot department. I really thought it was a better-than-decent book. As for the title, just a little more ambiguity thrown in with pretty awkward grammar that registers later in your memory as “It was some sort of phrase riddled with prepositions and having a faint hint of something philosophical.” Therefore, I was not expecting much. And did anyone in the whole, wide world read the nearly invisible words telling us this author is a NYTimes bestseller or that the book is funny and tragic? Because I sure didn’t. So why be so vague? And not even visually balanced. The kind of book you want to go into with eyes wide open. In fact it is a very specific sort of book. I think the cover is a lovely shade of blue, yes, but so over-the-top ambiguous. Just so you can see what the cover should look like. In fact, I dislike the cover so much, I have included a photo for an option (done by some person on the internet whose identity I could not discover) to the right. And let’s just hit it straight from my first impression on the table at Barnes & Noble. I would suggest like tens or hundred of books before this one, in that case. You might disagree with me, but I think the book is anything but a helpful support for a current cancer patient, even though they be in the YA category. I would not recommend it for someone actually with terminal cancer or even going through the cancer battle with someone else. The content will very most likely make you cry or maybe just grieve in some way. Let me just say this before I get truly started. So you want to review it the same way you might any other book. On the other hand, it is a book by a guy who is not dying of cancer. So you want to treat it carefully and kindly and not offend any dying kids. It is, after all, about terminal cancer and teenagers: it’s about kids dying. I bumped it up on the TBR queue, I picked it up, it read extremely fast, and now here we are at yet another review. Until a friend posted on Facebook that her copy was looking for a home. So I added it to the Best Books TBR (to be read) and put it out of my head. I was simply seeing this book everywhere. The Fault In Our Stars, by John Green, published in 2012 by Penguin.
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