Spoiler Alert: This is a book about teenagers with terminal cancer so, of course, there is death among the main characters, who are much to young to die.
That being said, I love this book so much!!! Yes, it's about kids who are dying of their respective varieties of cancer. Yes, there are events that will make you weep. Yes, it stirred up some not too pleasant memories of my own cancer treatment and friends I've lost to the disease. But it's an incredible book! If it is possible to fall in love with a character in a book, then I am totally smitten with seventeen year old Augustus Waters, who has lost a leg to bone cancer. He is funny, intelligent, quirky, and doesn't just sweep Hazel Grace Lancaster off her feet, he takes her on an amazing journey to Amsterdam and back and much more. Hazel has metastatic thyroid cancer that has spread to her lungs. She has been a Stage IV from the start and so is basically hanging on until she can't anymore. Augustus and Hazel meet at a support group and the rest is an amazing story of love and loss, with terrific dialogue and characters you can't help caring about. These kids are incredibly bright and articulate. The way they talk about their disease is profound. When Hazel compares having Stage IV to being a hand grenade that will one day go off and inflict damage on those around her and that she really doesn't want to be that hand grenade doing that damage, I thought, "That is exactly right." Green has written much more than just another tear jerker. This book is thoughtful, intense, and everyone should read it.
To be fair, there is a fault in the fault in our stars:
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I guess that is a fault depending on how much you like Natalie Portman.
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