The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Starsby John Green

Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 13, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs... for now.Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault.Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind. (goodreads.com)

I'd like to  think that in 50 years people will think of John Green in the same way they think of Harper Lee or Mark Twain.*I have to follow the above statement with the disclaimer that I am not a John Green fangirl. Sure, I love his Vlogbrothers videos, but when it comes to his novels, I have the following record:

• Looking for Alaska - I liked it, but it wasn't WOW.
• An Abundance of Katherines - couldn't finish it.
• Paper Towns - haven't read it, haven't even ever picked up a copy to look at. (Mostly because I had completely forgotten about it until now. For shame.)

The one thing I DO agree with for all those novels that I did read parts of is that John Green write literature. He writes what I call Smart Books. Books that are deep and beautifully worded. Books that are philosophical and Mean Something.Hell, I didn't finish Huckleberry Finn  or Tom Sawyer either. I thought they were dull and boring. I only just gave To Kill a Mockingbird a chance two years ago for its 50th Anniversary. Just because I don't like a novel doesn't mean I don't think it's well written and intelligent.I didn't jump on the TFioS pre-order bandwagon like the rest of the internet did. Sure, I watched all the Vlogbrothers videos about the book, the many, many signed pages, and so on, but I didn't want to pre-order the book. Why? Because I didn't know if I would like it and the thought of buying it, amidst the hype was terrifying to me. I couldn't buy it. I hate buying books I end up disliking.Fast forward to last week in NYC/BEA. John Green was one of the 4 authors speaking at the Children's Author Breakfast. When I heard he was on the panel, I knew my fears of picking up TFiOS were being calmed because generally those who pay to attend the breakfast WITH breakfast included, get a copy of each of the participating authors' book. As of  8:00am, Wednesday, June 6, I was the proud owner of John Green's The Fault in Our Stars (unsigned, of course.)I started reading it the next day. In my entire week away from home at a book event, I hadn't read one page of anything, until TFiOS. I finished it while waiting for my flight home on Saturday.In one of those rare moments I kick myself for not doing something my gut tells me to do, I actually regretted not pre-ordering a signed copy of this book.In another rare moment, I wished I had sticky notes with me so I could find blocks of dialogue and/or prose again because there were instances that the words just took my breath away.I enjoyed this novel immensely. I'm having trouble putting into words what I loved about it and why I loved it. It was more of a feeling of being wrapped tight-but-not-too-tight, in a soft, thick, comforter/blanket. This comforter/blanket is white with thin, sky blue lines. Lighter blue than on the cover. It's cool to the touch on your skin, like the cool side of a pillow on a really warm day. It's comforting and safe. I felt cocooned in this fluffy, cool, aura while I was reading it. There is sadness, but it's not sad to me. The entire story made me feel hopeful, as heart-wrenching as some scenes were. The times I felt I should cry, because I could feel the emotion welling up inside of me, were soothed by some unknown calming force.This is a book about tragic, unforgiving illness, but Hazel just filled me with such hope and faith I couldn't cry. I couldn't cry for her and I couldn't cry for Augustus or Issac. I couldn't cry for Van Houten. I couldn't cry for anyone. The more upsetting the story became the calmer I felt. I can't explain why. I can't.John Green didn't write a Cancer Book as Hazel puts it at one point, he writes about life, love, faith and hope. Because of those four elements, I didn't find this book as sad as I thought it would be. Because those four elements were so amazingly woven in to the fabric of the story, I feel like John Green wrote a book about hope and life and not about tragedy and death.So, yeah, I am not a fangirl (though I will admit to swooning a little as I saw John Green walk past me twice on the BEA conference floor. Because, well, he's slightly dreamy) but I can honestly say that if The Fault in Our Stars deserves to end up on that list of Literary Classics at some point because dammit, it reads like one. (But, you know, a non-boring one. One that I would have LOVED to have had to read in high school.)And since it's very, very rare that I read any sort of contemporary fiction and I am telling you this is worth the read, you know there must be SOMETHING to it.The end. * I know there are way to many "think"s in that first sentence, but I kept rewriting it over and over and it always sounded off, so I kept it that way regardless. Whatever.