Review: "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green
When it comes to books, films, and life in general really, I have been known to be a highly emotional person. Be it a happy ending that sees me shed a few elegant tears or a sad ending that leaves me in a blubbering mess on the floor, it is not hard to make me cry. What makes The Fault in Our Stars different is that I spent the last half of the book a blubbering mess, and I still don’t know if it’s because I was happy or sad.
Hazel Lancaster is a sixteen year old who is resigned to a life that is defined by having terminal cancer. That is until she meets cancer survivor Augustus Walters. After bonding over the fictitious novel An Imperial Affliction, particularly the novel’s unfinished final sentence, the teenagers embark on a journey to discover the unanswered questions. In doing so, they prove that being diagnosed as “terminal” does not mean that you have to stop living: “you gave me forever within the numbered days”. Here in lies my emotional conflict: I don’t know if I’m happy that two people got to live more in their short lives than most do in a long one, or sad that they didn’t get longer. Perhaps it is both. Perhaps that is the point.
Part of me (the part that remembers suffering with an awful headache from shedding so many tears) wants to review this book badly, but that would be an awful injustice to the genius of The Fault in Our Stars. It takes a special talent to be able to draw an audience into a story, to make them invest in characters enough to feel any kind of emotion for their fates. Therefore, the author can receive nothing but positive reviews from me.
John Green might possibly be the master of young adult literature. The Fault in Our Stars is a perfect example of how young adult fiction should be: unapologetically honest about life in a way that is not condescending, but rather respects its intellectual and critical readers.
A novel that could very easily have been maudlin and depressing, Green creates a witty beacon of hope and positivity, while still maintaining an authentic portrayal of reality. And perhaps it is this that makes the novel all the more heartbreaking.
The creation of An Imperial Affliction, a fictional novel within a novel, is genius use of metafiction that is a reflection of life. Hazel’s obsession with the plot holes of the story mimics reality, and, just as with life, sometimes the story ends and questions (and sentences) get left unanswered. And credit to Green, I spent half the book convinced that An Imperial Affliction must be a real novel because it was so well plotted out with The Fault in Our Stars. I was actually really disappointed when I learned that I wouldn’t be able to read the story myself.
In their attempt to unveil the secrets of An Imperial Affliction, Hazel and Augustus realise that sometimes it is better to not know the truth; sometimes things are better left answered—that way you can’t be disappointed.
This novel had me hooked on every word. The suffering, the fear, the love: I felt it all. The awkward teenage moments, the devastating pre-funeral eulogies, the first dates: I experienced them all. And when I finished The Faulty in Our Stars, just like the characters, I felt like I had lived a lifetime in just over 300 pages.
I also couldn’t escape the feeling that there was something I should take away from this novel, and I kept asking myself the same philosophical question: what is the fault in our stars? I realised that not everything in life can be categorised, or answered, or finished, but it is those faults that encourage us to learn, discover, and live.
