I am now a member of Goodreads! You can become friends with me on there to follow my reviews and keep an eye on my bookshelf. It's a great website, and it keeps my reading in line.
------------------------------
John Green's The Fault in Our Stars is an inspirational book. Upon finishing it, I felt positive about life and I immediately went downstairs and threw it at my mother.
"Read this book!"
"Okay!" She cried back, "... what's it about?"
"It's about cancer, and you might find it funny, sad, happy, warm, angering, or heartbreaking, or all of them at once. You might fall in love with the characters, you might hate some characters in particular.. But you will like the ending, even though you knew it was going to end right there and then."
Hazel Grace's lungs don't work properly and they fill with fluid regularly, her life is only prolonged by a new type of drug (one which John Green acknowledges is truly fictitious and exists only in the story), she is on a sinking ship, but upon meeting Augustus Waters, something is awakened inside of her which gives her new hope.
When I was reading the book, I took it a hundred pages at a time... I was done in two days. I wanted to know more about what happened to Hazel and her family, and I guess this mimics An Imperial Affliction, Hazel's favourite book which follows the journey of a girl with cancer. Augustus Waters promises to take her to meet the author of AIA, and the description of the romantic dinner which they share in Amsterdam is beautiful.
"We watched the confetti fall from the sky, skip across the ground in the breeze, and tumble into the canal."
The Fault in Our Stars is one of those books which you find hard to put down - it doesn't tire you out like some other heavier reads, and it could be attributed to the genius of Green, or even the layout of the physical book. It felt light, and the font was well spaced so I felt like I was making great progress with each new paragraph.
Maybe it was the way that Green manages to make each new page depict a different event in Hazel's life. The story takes place over less than a year, but the development of Hazel as a character throughout makes you feel like time is moving a lot faster.
The Fault in Our Stars doesn't end in the middle of a sentence like you think it will, but it ends with beauty and Grace. Hazel Grace. But it doesn't matter how it ends, it's completely about the journey towards the end - the end of the life of a young girl suffering with cancer.
