The Fault in Our Stars

Green, John. 2012. The Fault in Our Stars. New York, NY: Dutton Books. ISBN 9781101569184

Brief Plot Summary: 

 

Hazel is a teen suffering from cancer.  Her condition is terminal but she is functioning well when she meets Augustus, a cancer survivor, at a teen cancer support group.  She and Augustus quickly form a bond and pursue a relationship; both realizing that time is not something that is guaranteed. 

 

Critical analysis:

 I don’t think I can say enough positive things about this excellent book.  The characters were outstanding.  The dialogue clearly illustrated the emotional growth reflected in the story.  The characters were more emotionally mature than most teens that age, due to their circumstances, so the dialogue may not reflect the typical teen slang but it was both intelligent and witty, lacking excess words or descriptions (“I went to support group for the same reason that I’d once allowed nurses with a mere eighteen months of graduate education to poison me with exotically named chemicals:  I wanted to make my parents happy.  There is only one thing in this world shittier than biting it from cancer when you’re sixteen, and that’s having a kid who bites it from cancer”).

 At first glance, the fact that Hazel and Augustus manage to travel across the globe together may seem implausible but once readers realize that the Make a Wish Foundation really does grant such wishes, it will make sense.  The story is fresh, original, and unexpectedly witty, given its subject matter.  Readers will remain hopeful, up to the inevitable conclusion and they will not stop rooting for these characters.

The contemporary setting is illustrated by the video games, cell phones, and cultural references throughout the book but the references are generic enough that it will not feel dated any time soon.  The themes of hope and perseverance will be familiar to young readers and there is no obvious moralizing in this story.  In fact, I am hopeful that readers can see how it’s important to be non-judgmental because you never know what someone is going through in life.

 John Green’s writing style is straightforward and conversational, yet witty and intelligent.  There writing is heavy on dialogue but it is so entertaining that readers won’t mind.  The main protagonist, Hazel, is female but Augustus (male) is a major character so both genders are adequately represented, enhancing the story’s appeal to all readers. 

 

Awards won: 

 #1 New York Times bestseller
#1 Wall Street Journal bestseller
#9 The Bookseller (UK) bestseller
#1 Indiebound bestseller
New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice
Starred reviews from Booklist, SLJ, Publisher’s Weekly, Horn Book, and Kirkus

 

Review Excerpts:

Kirkus Reviews

Sparks fly when Hazel Grace Lancaster spies Augustus "Gus" Waters checking her out across the room in a group-therapy session for teens living with cancer. He's a gorgeous, confident, intelligent amputee who always loses video games because he tries to save everyone. She's smart, snarky and 16; she goes to community college and jokingly calls Peter Van Houten, the author of her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, her only friend besides her parents. He asks her over, and they swap novels. He agrees to read the Van Houten and she agrees to read his-based on his favorite bloodbath-filled video game. The two become connected at the hip, and what follows is a smartly crafted intellectual explosion of a romance. From their trip to Amsterdam to meet the reclusive Van Houten to their hilariously flirty repartee, readers will swoon on nearly every page. Green's signature style shines: His carefully structured dialogue and razor-sharp characters brim with genuine intellect, humor and desire. He takes on Big Questions that might feel heavy-handed in the words of any other author: What do oblivion and living mean? Then he deftly parries them with humor: "My nostalgia is so extreme that I am capable of missing a swing my butt never actually touched." Dog-earing of pages will no doubt ensue.

Green seamlessly bridges the gap between the present and the existential, and readers will need more than one box of tissues to make it through Hazel and Gus' poignant journey.

2012. "The Fault in Our Stars." Kirkus Reviews 59. Library & Information Science Source, EBSCOhost (accessed July 29, 2013).

 

School Library Journal

--"It's not fair," complains 16-year-old Hazel from Indiana. "The world," says Gus, her new friend from her teen support group, "is not a wish-granting factory." Indeed, life is not fair; Hazel and Gus both have cancer, Hazel's terminal. Despite this, she has a burning obsession: to find out what happens to the characters after the end of her favorite novel. An Imperial Affliction by Dutch author Peter Van Houten is about a girl named Anna who has cancer, and it ends in mid-sentence (presumably to indicate a life cut short), a stylistic choice that Hazel appreciates but the ambiguity drives her crazy. Did the "Dutch Tulip Man" marry Anna's mom? What happened to Sisyphus the Hamster? Hazel asks her questions via email and Van Houten responds, claiming that he can only tell her the answers in person. When she was younger, Hazel used her wish-one granted to sick children from The Genie Foundation--by going to Disney World. Gus decides to use his to take Hazel to Amsterdam to meet the author. Like most things in life, the trip doesn't go exactly as anticipated. Van Houten is a disappointment, but Hazel, who has resisted loving Gus because she doesn't want to be the grenade that explodes in his life when she dies, finally allows herself to love. Once again Green offers a well-developed cast of characters capable of both reflective thought and hilarious dialogue. With his trademark humor, lovable parents, and exploration of big-time challenges, The Fault in Our Stars is an achingly beautiful story about life and loss.

 

O'Malley, Ragan1. 2012. "The Fault in Our Stars." School Library Journal 58, no. 2: 120. Library & Information Science Source, EBSCOhost (accessed July 29, 2013).

 

Publisher’s Weekly

 If there's a knock on John Green (and it's more of a light tap considering he's been recognized twice by the Print/ committee) it's that he keeps writing the same book: nerdy guy in unrequited love with impossibly gorgeous girl, add road trip. His fourth novel departs from that successful formula to even greater success: this is his best work yet. Narrator Hazel Grace Lancaster, 16, is (miraculously) alive thanks to an experimental drug that is keeping her thyroid cancer in check. In an effort to get her to have a life (she withdrew from school at 13), her parents insist she attend a support group at a local church, which Hazel characterizes in an older-than-her-years voice as a "rotating cast of characters in various states of tumor-driven unwellness." Despite Hazel's reluctant presence, it's at the support group that she meets Augustus Waters, a former basketball player who has lost a leg to cancer. The connection is instant, and a (doomed) romance blossoms. There is a road trip--Augustus, whose greatest fear is not of death but that his life won't amount to anything, uses his "Genie Foundation" wish to take Hazel to Amsterdam to meet the author of her favorite book. Come to think of it, Augustus is pretty damn hot. So maybe there's not a new formula at work so much as a gender swap. But this iteration is smart, witty, profoundly sad, and full of questions worth asking, even those like "Why me.'" that have no answer. Ages 14-up.

2012. "The Fault in Our Stars." Publishers Weekly 259, no. 3: 57. Library & Information Science Source, EBSCOhost (accessed July 29, 2013).

 Connections:

An Okay For Now Educator’s Guide with ideas for enrichment activities can be found here:

http://www.teachervision.fen.com/literature-guide/printable/69858.html