The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

First, I want to say I liked it.  Really, I did.  The story was compelling and the characters were accessible and easy to like.  So what's my problem?  Well, I don't really have one except that I don't think I LOVED this book the way many people did.  I liked it.  I liked it a lot, actually.  I would re-read it even.  But if you Google this book, you will come across approximately ninety bajillion reviews stating how this book is the portal to Ultimate Truths and that one should just jump into a box of Kleenex whilst reading.  Don't believe me?  Check out this Tumblr page.  I mean, wow.  Wow.  So.......I liked it, but I only used three or four tissues and I kinda thought we all already knew the Deep Stuff in the book.  But that's also how I felt about the film American Beauty; didn't we already know all that Deep Stuff? Why is this (good) movie becoming the beacon for Truth?  But I do realize that there are people younger than I am and their first experience with Ultimate Truths has to happen somewhere, and this book isn't a bad place for that to happen.

The Fault in Our Stars centers around Hazel.  Hazel is sixteen and has been aware of her mortality for awhile, thanks to the terminal cancer she has lived with for years.  She knows she would already be dead if it weren't for an experimental drug that miraculously has made her traitorous tumors shrink.  She will never be cured, but she is able to live longer with the help of the drug.  Hazel is doing her best to be sixteen and deal with all that.  Personally, I really like Hazel.  She's more mature than she should be but still vulnerable with just enough angst to be a proper teenager.  Hazel has found the perfect novel about a Kid With Cancer, and while she might like to sit in her room and read it for the thousandth time, her mother convinces her to go a support group meeting.  There Hazel meets Augustus and things change for both of them.

Augustus had bone cancer and lost part of a leg, but he's at this particular meeting to offer moral support to a friend.  He and Hazel get to talking.  Then they get to talking over the phone.  Then they hang out.  And eventually they end up in Amsterdam.  Hmm.  It's way more logical in the book.  The point is, they fall for one another.  Augustus gives Hazel a reason to see more of the world beyond her bedroom and her favorite book and Hazel gives Augustus her favorite book and deeper insight.  They are a pretty great couple.  But this is a book involving kids with cancer, so you can probably see that there is going to be some sadness here.  I'll just say that you should be prepared for reality to creep in and take up residence here.

I don't want to say much else about the plot, because it really is a great book.  And for many people this is going to be the first Great Book they read.  For the rest of us who have already explored these themes, it's still well-written, insightful, and even funny read.  I'm torn between PG-13 and R as a rating:  there's some language (they're teenagers), and non-explicit sex (easily a cut away in the screenplay - there's going to be a movie by the way), but really the mature content of death and dying is the toughest stuff here.  I'm not letting my niece  read it for a couple of years.  She's ten but wise beyond her father's years.  But when she's old enough I'll gift it to her because it really is that good.  It's just that I'm not bronzing it like some people are.  So the fault is not in the stars, dear Brutus, but in me.  :)

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