The Fault in Our Stars by John Green: Book Review

The Fault in Our Stars
    
Book title/ Author: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
 Publisher/ Year: January 3rd 2013 Penguin Books
Genre: YA Contemporary
Series: No
Pages: 316
Rating: 5 stars out of 5


*This review may contain spoilers!*

Synopsis

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.

My review

I tend to put off reading books that have a lot of hype surrounding them as I then normally put an extremely high expectation on them, and I hate to come out the other side and end up being disappointed at the turn out. And so I kept on putting off this book (and several others) until it came to the point where I suddenly realised that the film is coming out in the UK pretty soon, and I better hurry up if I wanted to stick to my tradition of reading the book before watching the film.

Prior to reading the book, I unfortunately found out the major spoiler in the book and things like that frustrate me to no end, even though I'm sure the person did not intend to ruin my reading experience. Because of this, I found myself reading the book waiting for the massive thing to happen, which isn't a way to read a book at all.

Despite all of this, I am very pleased to say I fell in love with this book. The characters and the writing gripped me from start to finish, and I now truly understand why John Green has so much hype as he does (because he deserves it). I felt it was very interesting finding out about different people's experiences with cancer, and reading the book through Hazel's POV gave me a really good insight as to how the patients actually feel. Hazel is such a realistic teenager, I found, with normal issues going on, hand-in-hand with the life-threatening ones. But I guess in other ways she wasn't, and neither was Gus, because they have had to deal with something so looming for a very long time.

I knew from the start that this book would be sad. I mean, it's about kids with cancer, what would you expect? And I did cry, though not as much as I thought I would, as I am a very emotional person. What I didn't expect was for it to be funny. Throughout the book were little golden nuggets of light-hearted humour, which I loved.

John Green's book has a little bit of everything mixed together to make a perfect book. It made me laugh, it made me cry, but most of all it made me want to meet Hazel and Gus and John, and just give them the best hug I could give. After only reading one book of John's, he is already a favourite. And although I was extremely angry at him at the end, when I threw the book on my bed and refused to pick it back up (but then I got withdrawals and finished it), I don't think this book could be improved at all. Coming from me that is a very high compliment indeed.

Thank you John for introducing me to some of the most amazing characters ever. And to everyone reading this, please as soon as you can, go to your nearest bookshop or go online, and buy yourself this book.

Izzy

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