Review Detail

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is an impelling novel narrated by a sixteen year-old lung cancer patient, Hazel Grace Lancaster. The book is about the misfortunes she will be facing while on a trip to Amsterdam with her boyfriend Augustus Waters, who has amputated his right leg due to bone cancer, and is in remission. Hazel and Augustus then travel to Amsterdam to search for Peter Van Houten, the author of their favorite book, An Imperial Affliction. While returning from the trip Augustus reveals some bitter news to Hazel, which drives the story plot to a turning point.
I genuinely liked the sassy narration of this story. Unfortunately as the strength of the book, it also was a weakness: there were times when Hazel and Augustus sounded smarter and savvier than any sixteen-year-old I’ve ever met; even the other characters sometimes shared this abnormal cleverness. As much as I liked Hazel and Augustus, and found them ravishing, I also felt that I could see the author’s shadow in these characters. “It does not taste like God himself cooked heaven into a series of five dishes which were served to you accompanied by several luminous balls fermented, bubbly plasma while actual and literal flower petals floated down all around your canal-side dinner table.” It was constantly in a metaphorically significant action and words, to the extent of being pretentious. There was a certain ingenuity within this narrative, its ironies and references to other cancer books, as well as its sarcastic puns.
Despite its humor and cheekiness, The Fault in Our Stars is definitely a tale of star-crossed lovers, and will surely bring you to a wailing end.