Book Review: “The Fault in Our Stars”

By John Green, 2012

Reviewed by Ehis Osifo, 16
Massachusetts

The Fault in Our Stars is John Green's fifth novel, and his first from a girl's point of view. Through the course of the novel we meet Hazel Grace, a realistic-to-the-point-of-being-pessimistic teenage girl with thyroid cancer that has spread to her lungs. Her outlook on life is pretty bleak until she meets happy-go-lucky Augustus Waters, a teenage boy who has had his leg amputated from his battle with osteosarcoma. These two unlikely friends meet and fall in love—against all odds. Even though they face heartbreak, loss, depression, disappointment, and even death in their time together, their love still goes on.

The Fault in Our Stars is one of the most captivating novels I've read recently. It's fresh and funny and takes you to places where you never thought a book could take you.. Hazel has such a fresh voice and beautiful insight about life and the people in it. Through Hazel, John Green does one thing that many authors fear to do: He tells the truth. And he doesn't sugar-coat it. Even though The Fault in Our Stars is a story about teens with cancer, it's not a "cancer story." More often than not you forget that the characters have cancer.

This epic love story will make you laugh on the same pages that will make you cry. Its rawness is mixed with serenity. You won't want to stop until you've reached those last pages, and once you do finish, the tale of Hazel and Augustus will stay with you forever. This is a novel that will go down in history.