Considering I’m not a young adult, I rarely venture into the YA genre of books, but a friend of mine who is in fact a young adult sent me “The Fault in Our Stars”, and being a huge bookworm with no other unread stories laying around, I began to read it. And read it. And read it. I couldn’t put it down.
It is difficult for me to describe the mood of this book, so let me tell you what it’s about. Get your tissue to dab at the tears in your eyes. I’ll wait. Ready? OK, so this story revolves around a sixteen year old terminal cancer patient named Hazel Lancaster, whose particular type of thyroid cancer has spread to her lungs, but is currently being held in check by a sort of miracle drug that is prolonging the inevitable, well, indefinitely. Hazel is a bit of a recluse, and her understandably overprotective mother insists she attend a support group for young cancer patients, where she meets Augustus Waters, a seventeen year old bone cancer patient who, although he is in remission, has lost a leg to the disease.
What follows is a heartbreaking, realistic look at young love when the outcome is somewhat predetermined. Yet there are some amazingly dark moments of humor (what would a good YA cancer book be without characters who can make jokes at their own expense). Our own spirits begin to be caught up in the questions of these star-crossed lovers; questions such as will I be remembered when I’m gone, will my life have counted for anything, or will I fade into oblivion? These characters were raw and real, not glamorized or knighted for sainthood.
I could easily see this book being made into a movie, but I hope it won’t be. The beauty of this story is its realness, and I think Hollywood would just fake that up.
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