Tag Archives: The Fault in Our Stars

TFIOS: An Updated Review

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It’s irrational to think that no book has flaws. It’s silly to imagine it. Alas, I was still in the stage after reading a book where you haven’t quite processed everything, and you can only think of either brilliant praises or detestful criticism. My original review of The Fault in Our Stars on the blog was skewed in the former. This is my redo.

Needless to say, I still love this book. I didn’t have a complete change of heart like that, but now I am more able to recognize faults and places where the writing fell short.

My biggest gripe upon rereading and rethinking is that while there are some great, really quotable, and flowy lines, they don’t always fit naturally into the dialogue. if you can suspend your disbelief and accept that all of this is apparently normal people things for these teens, you can really enjoy the poeticism of it all. Seriously though, they pull monologues as normal conversation starters. In particular, the cigarette metaphor was not resonant with me

Fortunately, for the most part, I was able to overlook this and let myself sink into the writing.

I enjoyed Augustus’ character over Hazels, the trope of “We can’t be together cause I could die!” is particularly grating but thankfully the plot graces over this fairly quickly.

Again, there were some monologues and dialogue that really, really, REALLY worked for me. It wasn’t all a bit meandering, I promise.

For all of the criticism that this review seems to hold, I promise you that this book still holds a place in my heart. I merely wanted to present that this book, like all others, has flaws. What worked for me might not work for you, or vice versa.

Either way, you should still check it out. A lot of what I said in the first review still applies. It’s beautiful writing, a beautiful story, and it’s a beautiful experience to read. Do check it out.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is available to check out from the Mission Viejo Library. It is also available to download for free from Libby.

The Fault in Our Stars: A Masterpiece

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The Fault in Our Stars has been talked about a lot. It’s moving, it’s tragic, it’s so wonderfully and horribly true.

(It’s making me wax poetic as we speak!)

I don’t know quite what I would say in a spoiler review, so instead let this post be here to convince you, to be that sign to check out TFIOS. You won’t regret it.

A sixteen year old girl named Hazel Grace has, as she puts it, lungs that “suck at being lungs.” She uses a cannula to breathe and carries an oxygen tank around; she suffers from thyroid cancer. Every week she goes to a cancer meeting of survivors and patients, as forced by her mother. Hazel, of course, is in the patients group- her disease is terminal and always has been.

Eventually, Augustus Waters, who has been cancer-free for a year and bears a prosthetic leg for his burden, comes into a meeting. And so the two click.

Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters; love in its rawest, purest, most untainted form. As John Green so famously wrote, and as Hazel Grace so famously said: “…I fell in love the way you fall asleep. Slowly, and then all at once.” 

Filled to the brim with enough wit and metaphors to last a lifetime, the pair thrives off of each other’s sharp and astute nature. Books and poems, the thrill of the chase.

It’s filled with rides and waves and those beautiful aha moments and those crushing, sweep you off your feet realizations. 

Oh, this book takes your heart and whips it up into a pretty cream just to drop it and watch it splatter on the sidewalk

In a good way, of course.

I developed a tendency to put mini-sticky bookmarks over particularly good quotes, scenes, or anything I might want to come back to.

And I have to say, this book is an endless trove of remarkable quotes – I ran out of bookmarks

I’ll have to stop here before I ramble on any longer. Seriously, genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, read this. Maybe there are a few tropes in the plot, but the writing far outweighs it. Brilliant execution.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. It’s one of the best reads I’ve ever had.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is available to check out from the Mission Viejo Library. It is also available to download for free from Libby.

Book Review: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

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Sixteen-year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster is a medical miracle living on an oxygen tank and a drug called Phalanxifor. Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at thirteen, Hazel has been through many surgeries and treatments. At one point, dozens of drugs were flowing through her body, trying to keep her alive. Later, doctors experimented on her with Phalanxifor, a drug that didn’t work on around 70% of people—but it worked on Hazel.

Hazel is made of cancer, but The Fault in Our Stars is in no way a typical cancer story. Hazel’s experience with cancer has made her seem a lot older and wiser than she is. Her insights are so interesting to think about, readers will contemplate them for days afterward.

When asked why she doesn’t eat meat, Hazel explains simply, “I want to minimize the number of deaths I am responsible for.”

When a boy in her Cancer Kid Support Group says he fears oblivion (the state of being forgotten by the public), Hazel replies in her wise and honest way, saying that one day everything will be gone and oblivion is inevitable, leaving the group speechless.

But by this time, cancer has completely invaded her body and identity. Hazel’s story is cancer, how it has affected her, and how she has bought herself a couple more years to live. There’s no going back now, no wondering what could have been if cancer had never showed up in her life—Who knows? Who cares? Hazel knows it won’t change a thing. But when she meets Augustus Waters, her entire life is turned around.

In spending time with Augustus, both expose, find, and realize their true and inner selves. On the surface, both are cancer-influenced people who have grown mentally older, wiser, and stronger. Hazel and Augustus discuss the deepest subjects and throw around a whole lot of fancy words. But underneath, both are still naïve teenagers learning how to navigate life.

Intuitive, fearless, poignant, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is a truly incredible story of life, death, and those in between. It will make readers smile, laugh, and cry all at the same time. I was not able to stop thinking about the story and its characters long after I finished reading, and the same will occur for you if you choose to read it. The Fault in Our Stars seems to reach beyond its pages, just like a pop-up book—but instead of paper figures popping out, it is the acute emotion that John Green paints painstakingly into his beautiful story.

“There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of the sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that’s what everyone else does.”

-Hazel Grace Lancaster, The Fault in Our Stars

-Lam T.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. It can also be downloaded for free from Overdrive.