What are they talking about?
I'm not going to read/watch it, it probably isn't good.
Dammit, I have to know WHY they are talking about it.
Admittedly, there have been both wins and losses in this mindless pursuit. Win - The City of Bones and all the following novels, Batman Begins. Major losses - Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey, and Napoleon Dynamite.
But, I must concede that this novel, The Fault in Our Stars, is one of the best things the internet has ever convinced me to read. I was already a John Green fan, but this novel puts him a distinct category very few authors/actors can say they belong in - characters that made me tear up.
Now, not to say I am a heartless hind, but let's face it, it has to be extremely well written for me to get so emotionally invested in a character that I shed a tear. I often get very angry (cue Sirius Black's death), or simply sad (Dumbledore,but let's face it, once that black, rotten hand was mentioned, you knew nothing good was going to happen), or when George R.R. Martin killed the direwolves (I hate when they hurt animals). I do remember distinctly tearing up while reading Bridge to Teribithia and demanding my father read it so he could explain to me why she had to die. *He never did and to this day I still don't get it*. But, oh, this novel, this novel got me. I didn't bawl my eyes out or sob into a handkerchief, my nose running all uncontrollably. No, it was worse than that. It was the silent tears slowly streaming down your face while your throat gets all tight; the kind of crying we try to hide or prevent from happening because "come on, the person isn't even real!". Well played, John Green, well played sir.
First of all, the novel immediately begins with telling you the main character, Hazel, has cancer. So, naturally, I braced myself for death. If not her, someone. I mean, the first things she does is go to a support group for people who have cancer and immediately tells us about death. So, yeah, someone is obviously going to die. She has a cancer that affects her lungs and thus has to carry an oxygen tank with her everywhere, but she deals really well. (She also makes some awesome comments on the perceived coping mechanisms of those with cancer which I found well written).
He writes about Hazel and how she meets this boy Augustus. Augustus lost his leg to cancer and came to accompany a mutual friend of theirs to this support group. Long story short (only because I don't want to give away any spoilers. Do not interpret this as me Yada Yada Yada -ing through some boring stuff) girl meets boy, boy likes girl, girl likes boy.
One of the fascinating parts of the novel is the way these two characters connect. On the night that they first meet, Augustus asks Hazle what her favorite book is. She tells him (it is not a real book, dammit), he reads its, they bond. Then, as her "wish" (actually his, but that is explained in the novel), they get to go to Amsterdam to meet the author. This has been her dream; she wants him to tell her the ending to his novel. You see, he wrote about a dying girl and the book just ends in the middle of a sentence...very thought provoking, yes?
Well, let me tell you something. If there was ever a time I felt connected to a character is in this book...and unfortunately I cannot tell you about it. But trust me, I know this feeling all too well. When I met the author I idolized, let's just say Hazel and I had very similar experiences.
I desperately want to go through this book event by event and tell you how much i loved it all, but I can't, because then you wouldn't read it, and I want everyone to read this book. EVERYONE. It is that good. But, I warn you, you will get emotional. It is not the death that makes you cry, or at least, that is not what made me cry. It is how the death is viewed. It discusses all the nastier parts of emotions when we are dying; we all know they exist, but once we put a voice to them you feel them in ways that your thoughts alone could never do justice to.
So, moral of this entry? Read this book. Seriously, it is an amazing story. The thing I love best about it is that (I believe) the story isn't to get you to think about death at all, but how you live your life. Which, let's face it, we all could use some time reflecting on.
A note on the cover: Definitely did not make me think I was going to cry.
