“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
― William Shakespeare // Julius Caesar
― William Shakespeare // Julius Caesar
Bibliographic Data: Green, J. (2012). Read by: Kate Rudd. The Fault in Our Stars. New York: Brilliance Audio on CD Unabridged. 1455869910
(Note-- the Audiobook, the physical novel, and an online reading by John Green were all used in the reading of this novel. As I focused mostly on listening to the audiobook, that is the bibliographic data provided.)
Plot Summary:
Hazel Grace is depressed, and for good reason. She has had cancer for years, and her parents coddle her because of it. Yes, she’s in remission, but no one can look past her cannula and pageboy haircut. She escapes into bad syndicated television when her mom is not forcing her to go to support group with other cancer-stricken children in the ‘literal heart of Jesus’ in a tiny church basement. Things are monotonous and dreary, the way they always are for Hazel Grace, until she meets Augustus Waters. Then, in a flash, everything changes. She falls in love, travels to another country, experiences a crushing loss, and learns that even your idols are tragically flawed humans, just like everyone else.
Critical Analysis:
The character of Hazel Grace is written in a manner that makes her completely relatable to any reader. She is sharp-tongued, quick-witted, brave, and brutally honest. She looks completely average, and is in every way ordinary, except that she has cancer. Green puts a subtle emphasis on her hobbies; clearly exemplifying that she is has the same interests as other people her age. She is filled with typical teenage angst, is self-critical, compares herself to her best friend, and struggles with autonomy. The book would not work if Hazel Grace did not read as authentic and real as she does. If there is one instance in which the Hazel character does not seem completely plausible, it is when she pulls away from Gus for fear of hurting him like his ex, who passed of cancer did. Yes, this makes her even more martyr-like, and adds more dimension to her character, but it seems like a rather adult decision for a young girl to make. However, Green does imply that cancer makes people mature more quickly than others as they are forced to confront their own mortality, and have to deal with so many hurt loved ones.
Augustus Waters embodies your typical male love interest, is basically the male-mirror image of Hazel Grace, except he is far more hopeful and optimistic (when he is not ill). He is self-sacrificing, thoughtful, and crazy about Hazel, intelligent, has some bad-boy edge, and is sensitive. The best thing about Augustus is not that he goes out of his way to make Hazel happy, or that he keeps the return of his illness from Hazel in order to not upset her, but is the journey we take with his character when the cancer returns. He transitions from a strong, sardonic, teen in love, to a withering, helpless, sick child that does not even have the capability to control his own bodily faculties.
The reader is hopeful, then angry, and then enraged, then utterly depressed simply following the character arc of these two characters.
Green also perfectly creates other minor characters in manner other authors often struggle with. Hazel’s mother, for instance, makes the journey from doting, helicopter parent that seemingly has no life or purpose outside of being care-taker to Hazel, to secret master’s student getting a degree in social work. van Houten, the idolized author of An Imperial Infliction ends up being a complete nightmare of a character that not only makes fun of cancer-kids, but also gets drunk and screams in their faces after a long journey from another country; yet the audience still feels for him after learning that he wrote his novel’s protagonist after the death of his own daughter.
The dialogue is rapid-fire, witty, and always the main focus of the story. The inner-dialogue Hazel Grace has is just as important. The pop-culture references are on point (America’s Next Top Model, for instance), and the way the characters react to certain incidences is age appropriate. At times the characters seem like adults, and the dialogue may seem a little too perfect, but that is because John Green clearly respects his reader ship and does not talk down to them.
The plot begins in a completely believable manner. We meet Hazel, she is sick and bitter, she spends most of her time watching television or being forced to go to support group, and then she meets a boy and her life mostly changes. The incidents revolving around her illness, Augustus’s relapse, and Isaac’s loss of sight, van Houten’s alcoholism, Hazel’s mother’s pain/yearning/eventual acceptance and growth are all plausible. The story is always engaging, filled with ebbs and flows, ups and downs, heartbreak and humor, and yet veers off a little in the later part of the story. Yes, maybe a teen dying of cancer would use his one-last-dying-wish to make their significant other happy, but the time frame is all highly unlikely. In just a quick matter of months Gus and Hazel meet, fall in love, Hazel gets sick, Gus gets the ‘wish granters’ to send them (along with Hazel’s mother) to Amsterdam to meet Van Houten, finds out his cancer returns, and then succumbs to it. Cancer does strike quickly and unexpectedly, but there is no way the Make a Wish Foundation/ or the fictionalized
‘Genies’ could have Hazel and Gus there within this time frame. The fact that there is most definitely not a happy ending, Gus does die, after all, makes the book even more believable.
The setting of the story is simple and just ambiguous enough to allow any reader to imagine themselves in the different scenes. When the characters travel to Amsterdam, Green is the right amount of specific, drawing on popular places like the Anne Frank House, and is elaborative enough to paint the scene for those that have never visited.
The major theme of the story can be summed up by this quote in the book : “The World is Not a Wish-Granting Factory”.
You cannot predict anything, for everything is ever evolving and changing. The only thing you can actually control is your reaction to the changes occurring around you. Green teaches important lessons to the reader, like the fact that van Houten is just a regularly flawed person like everyone else, and that parents, too, are just older children that still get scared and worried, yet must move on with their lives. He is not preachy; he clearly has respect for his readers, and does his best not to take the easy or romantic story paths. (Unless you count the Amsterdam trip! It is in my opinion that this worked because van Houten ended up being a total loon).
The story just works. It makes people want to keep reading. John Green’s voice is unmistakable and unflappable. All of his characters are wise beyond their years, yet honest and believable. The dialogue is enviable, (it reminds me of a Amy Sherman-Palladino script such as Gilmore Girls), and the author has the perfect balance of dialogue and narration. To stay true to the voice of teens, Green says things like, "He has cancer in his balls", and other things teens and children would say before learning about being couth or politically correct.
I started this book by listening to the Audiobook for free on Youtube. It was read by Kate Rudd, who although has a great talent for mastering many different voices and emotions, just does not come off sounding like the Hazel Grace I envisioned. She is perfectly sarcastic, quick-tongued, and young sounding, but there was something that just seemed lacking. I ended up reading along with the Audiobook, and then turning it off completely as it was making me frustrated. Yet, when I found a chapter read by John Green himself on Youtube I was hooked! I understand that Green would come off more believable as he wrote the characters himself, but it was more than that. John was excited. He was captivating. After seeing him read a chapter, I read the whole story in his voice, which may sound like a downfall but is actually a real asset to the story. After finishing this book I immediately researched him and found his other novels, youtube videos, etc. and am now a proud Nerd Fighter!
Notable Quotes:
This book has some truly amazing one-liners.
“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”
“My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.”
“That's the thing about pain," Augustus said, and then glanced back at me. "It demands to be felt”
“What a slut time is. She screws everybody.”
“Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.”
Awards:
Reviews:
TIME Magazine -“Damn near genius. . . . Simply devastating. . . . Fearless in the face of powerful, uncomplicated, unironized emotion.”
*Starred Review* - BOOKLIST- "[…]Writing about kids with cancer is an invitation to sentimentality and pathos—or worse, in unskilled hands, bathos. Happily, Green is able to transcend such pitfalls in his best and most ambitious novel to date. Beautifully conceived and executed, this story artfully examines the largest possible considerations—life, love, and death—with sensitivity, intelligence, honesty, and integrity. In the process, Green shows his readers what it is like to live with cancer, sometimes no more than a breath or a heartbeat away from death. But it is life that Green spiritedly celebrates here, even while acknowledging its pain. In its every aspect, this novel is a triumph. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Green’s promotional genius is a force of nature. After announcing he would sign all 150,000 copies of this title’s first print run, it shot to the top of Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s best-seller lists six months before publication. --Michael Cart
Connections:
(Note-- the Audiobook, the physical novel, and an online reading by John Green were all used in the reading of this novel. As I focused mostly on listening to the audiobook, that is the bibliographic data provided.)
Plot Summary:
Hazel Grace is depressed, and for good reason. She has had cancer for years, and her parents coddle her because of it. Yes, she’s in remission, but no one can look past her cannula and pageboy haircut. She escapes into bad syndicated television when her mom is not forcing her to go to support group with other cancer-stricken children in the ‘literal heart of Jesus’ in a tiny church basement. Things are monotonous and dreary, the way they always are for Hazel Grace, until she meets Augustus Waters. Then, in a flash, everything changes. She falls in love, travels to another country, experiences a crushing loss, and learns that even your idols are tragically flawed humans, just like everyone else.
Critical Analysis:
The character of Hazel Grace is written in a manner that makes her completely relatable to any reader. She is sharp-tongued, quick-witted, brave, and brutally honest. She looks completely average, and is in every way ordinary, except that she has cancer. Green puts a subtle emphasis on her hobbies; clearly exemplifying that she is has the same interests as other people her age. She is filled with typical teenage angst, is self-critical, compares herself to her best friend, and struggles with autonomy. The book would not work if Hazel Grace did not read as authentic and real as she does. If there is one instance in which the Hazel character does not seem completely plausible, it is when she pulls away from Gus for fear of hurting him like his ex, who passed of cancer did. Yes, this makes her even more martyr-like, and adds more dimension to her character, but it seems like a rather adult decision for a young girl to make. However, Green does imply that cancer makes people mature more quickly than others as they are forced to confront their own mortality, and have to deal with so many hurt loved ones.
Augustus Waters embodies your typical male love interest, is basically the male-mirror image of Hazel Grace, except he is far more hopeful and optimistic (when he is not ill). He is self-sacrificing, thoughtful, and crazy about Hazel, intelligent, has some bad-boy edge, and is sensitive. The best thing about Augustus is not that he goes out of his way to make Hazel happy, or that he keeps the return of his illness from Hazel in order to not upset her, but is the journey we take with his character when the cancer returns. He transitions from a strong, sardonic, teen in love, to a withering, helpless, sick child that does not even have the capability to control his own bodily faculties.
The reader is hopeful, then angry, and then enraged, then utterly depressed simply following the character arc of these two characters.
Green also perfectly creates other minor characters in manner other authors often struggle with. Hazel’s mother, for instance, makes the journey from doting, helicopter parent that seemingly has no life or purpose outside of being care-taker to Hazel, to secret master’s student getting a degree in social work. van Houten, the idolized author of An Imperial Infliction ends up being a complete nightmare of a character that not only makes fun of cancer-kids, but also gets drunk and screams in their faces after a long journey from another country; yet the audience still feels for him after learning that he wrote his novel’s protagonist after the death of his own daughter.
The dialogue is rapid-fire, witty, and always the main focus of the story. The inner-dialogue Hazel Grace has is just as important. The pop-culture references are on point (America’s Next Top Model, for instance), and the way the characters react to certain incidences is age appropriate. At times the characters seem like adults, and the dialogue may seem a little too perfect, but that is because John Green clearly respects his reader ship and does not talk down to them.
The plot begins in a completely believable manner. We meet Hazel, she is sick and bitter, she spends most of her time watching television or being forced to go to support group, and then she meets a boy and her life mostly changes. The incidents revolving around her illness, Augustus’s relapse, and Isaac’s loss of sight, van Houten’s alcoholism, Hazel’s mother’s pain/yearning/eventual acceptance and growth are all plausible. The story is always engaging, filled with ebbs and flows, ups and downs, heartbreak and humor, and yet veers off a little in the later part of the story. Yes, maybe a teen dying of cancer would use his one-last-dying-wish to make their significant other happy, but the time frame is all highly unlikely. In just a quick matter of months Gus and Hazel meet, fall in love, Hazel gets sick, Gus gets the ‘wish granters’ to send them (along with Hazel’s mother) to Amsterdam to meet Van Houten, finds out his cancer returns, and then succumbs to it. Cancer does strike quickly and unexpectedly, but there is no way the Make a Wish Foundation/ or the fictionalized
‘Genies’ could have Hazel and Gus there within this time frame. The fact that there is most definitely not a happy ending, Gus does die, after all, makes the book even more believable.
The setting of the story is simple and just ambiguous enough to allow any reader to imagine themselves in the different scenes. When the characters travel to Amsterdam, Green is the right amount of specific, drawing on popular places like the Anne Frank House, and is elaborative enough to paint the scene for those that have never visited.
The major theme of the story can be summed up by this quote in the book : “The World is Not a Wish-Granting Factory”.
You cannot predict anything, for everything is ever evolving and changing. The only thing you can actually control is your reaction to the changes occurring around you. Green teaches important lessons to the reader, like the fact that van Houten is just a regularly flawed person like everyone else, and that parents, too, are just older children that still get scared and worried, yet must move on with their lives. He is not preachy; he clearly has respect for his readers, and does his best not to take the easy or romantic story paths. (Unless you count the Amsterdam trip! It is in my opinion that this worked because van Houten ended up being a total loon).
The story just works. It makes people want to keep reading. John Green’s voice is unmistakable and unflappable. All of his characters are wise beyond their years, yet honest and believable. The dialogue is enviable, (it reminds me of a Amy Sherman-Palladino script such as Gilmore Girls), and the author has the perfect balance of dialogue and narration. To stay true to the voice of teens, Green says things like, "He has cancer in his balls", and other things teens and children would say before learning about being couth or politically correct.
I started this book by listening to the Audiobook for free on Youtube. It was read by Kate Rudd, who although has a great talent for mastering many different voices and emotions, just does not come off sounding like the Hazel Grace I envisioned. She is perfectly sarcastic, quick-tongued, and young sounding, but there was something that just seemed lacking. I ended up reading along with the Audiobook, and then turning it off completely as it was making me frustrated. Yet, when I found a chapter read by John Green himself on Youtube I was hooked! I understand that Green would come off more believable as he wrote the characters himself, but it was more than that. John was excited. He was captivating. After seeing him read a chapter, I read the whole story in his voice, which may sound like a downfall but is actually a real asset to the story. After finishing this book I immediately researched him and found his other novels, youtube videos, etc. and am now a proud Nerd Fighter!
Notable Quotes:
This book has some truly amazing one-liners.
“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”
“My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.”
“That's the thing about pain," Augustus said, and then glanced back at me. "It demands to be felt”
“What a slut time is. She screws everybody.”
“Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.”
Awards:
- TIME Magazine’s #1 Fiction Book of 2012
- An Entertainment Weekly Best Fiction Book of 2012
- John Green is one of Entertainment Weekly’s Entertainers of the Year, 2012
- #1 New York Times Bestseller
- #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller
- A USA Today Bestseller
- International Bestseller
- #1 Children’s Indiebound Pick
- New York Times Editor’s Choice
- The Huffington Post Best Books of 2012
- A Booklist Books for Youth Editor’s Choice
- The Horn Book Fanfare List
- A Publishers Weekly Best Book
- A School Library Journal Best Book
- Unprecedented EIGHT starred review
Reviews:
TIME Magazine -“Damn near genius. . . . Simply devastating. . . . Fearless in the face of powerful, uncomplicated, unironized emotion.”
*Starred Review* - BOOKLIST- "[…]Writing about kids with cancer is an invitation to sentimentality and pathos—or worse, in unskilled hands, bathos. Happily, Green is able to transcend such pitfalls in his best and most ambitious novel to date. Beautifully conceived and executed, this story artfully examines the largest possible considerations—life, love, and death—with sensitivity, intelligence, honesty, and integrity. In the process, Green shows his readers what it is like to live with cancer, sometimes no more than a breath or a heartbeat away from death. But it is life that Green spiritedly celebrates here, even while acknowledging its pain. In its every aspect, this novel is a triumph. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Green’s promotional genius is a force of nature. After announcing he would sign all 150,000 copies of this title’s first print run, it shot to the top of Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s best-seller lists six months before publication. --Michael Cart
Connections:
Green, John. Looking for Alaska. ISBN 0525475060
Green, John. Paper Towns. ISBN 0525478183
Visit John Green's Site here, to learn any and everything your mind could imagine! : http://johngreenbooks.com
Watch John Green read Chapter One of The Fault in Our Stars above.