Finished: "The Fault in Our Stars"

I can't even begin to say how wonderful this book is.

I could actually write an entire thesis on the awesomeness of this book, the symbolism, the resonant metaphors and many themes explored in the pages of this story about kids who are in love and who happen to have cancer. I could even then go on to write fan fiction to speculate about the continued futures of the characters I met listening to the audio recording.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is truly beautiful. There is nothing that isn't in the book for a reason. Even more exciting for me is that I have always wanted to find a book that had a character that I truly understood and felt a kinship to, and I did in Hazel Grace.

I've never been seriously ill, but I don't need to be to understand Hazel. I feel like John Green wrote Hazel as a character who feels so real and as a person who seems so cool and wonderful that I wish I'd known her when I was a teen. I wish I could have had a friend like her. I wish I could have met someone like Augustus. I wish I could know Isaac. But, as Hazel and Gus say, "The universe is not a wish-granting factory."

John Green made me remember that looking at the world and noticing the things around is so important. So much depends on us being able to notice the patterns of shadows cast by trees in the springtime. It is so essential that the taste of something rare be recognized and celebrated. The small, the insignificant, the overlooked is so important because it is a part of our small infinity of time. Hazel sees this. Hazel reminds me to look again to not forget to look and appreciate and be glad.

This book was not schmaltzy, overdone, melodramatic or weepy. It twisted and turned and surprised me. It's made me think about the story within a story, An Imperial Affliction, and I think I know how that fictional novel ends. I'd love to tell Hazel, but I suspect she figured it out, too.

This story makes me think how authors like John Green are so privileged to have characters like Hazel and Gus living inside of them. If Hazel and Gus are creations of Mr. Green and are a part of who he is, I think that he must be a truly amazing and very interesting person. His thoughts and ideas seem so engaging and I wonder if all of us have characters inside of us. What would happen if we brought them to life? What would they say about us?

PS: This audiobook won the 2013 Odyssey Award.