The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Difficulty level (easiest to hardest) - 5

Emotional level (least to most) - 8

Action (little to a lot) - 4

The Fault in Our Stars is an emotional book. At least, it makes you feel. Any girl would feel transformed into the protagonist, and it's difficult to get out of, especially since the length of the book is so short (or at least feels that way at a modest 313 pages).

The title, however, is a bit more difficult to understand.

The story is about a girl named Hazel. Hazel Grace. Hazel Grace Lancaster.

Hazel (or Hazel Grace, according to a boy) is written as a vague protagonist. Yes, we understand that she is mousy in her appearance, attends college at 16 years old, she isn't anything special, her lungs fill with cancerous fluid (did I mention she has cancer? She has that too). 

At the very beginning of the novel, Hazel has an argument with her parents about attending Support Group, a place where teens with capital-c Cancer go to find solace within one another and within themselves. To make them feel better about dying, essentially. At the end of each meeting they pray for all of those who have died - a long, long list. 

In what seems like no time at all, the reader is thrown into Hazel's world of attending cancer meetings, being hooked up to a breathing machine, hauling around an oxygen tank, and living to ultimately die - or at least so she says. Hazel meets Augustus Waters, a boy who shows up during one of the meetings who takes Hazel's breath away. From that point on, everything is about Augustus. As the two characters get attached to one another, the reader becomes attached to Augustus. Like every. other. teen. book.

But at the same time, it's different.

I would say that this book is definitely for the introverts, those people who live through books. Who read to escape. It's an emotional read, most definitely. But what got me was the dialogue between Hazel and Augustus - so open, so honest.

And if you liked The Perks of Being A Wallflower, you'll love this book. Honest.

Overall rating (poor to excellent) - 7.5

Quotes from the novel:

"Okay?""Okay." - Hazel and Augustus

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings." - Julius Caesar

"I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once." - Hazel

"That's the thing about pain, it demands to be felt." - Augustus

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