The Fault in Our Stars

Cover courtesy Wikipedia.org

The Fault in Our Stars



Author : John Green

Year Published : January 2012

Language : English

“Pain is like fabric: The stronger it is, the more it’s worth.”

Excerpt From: The Fault in Our Stars. 

Inspired by the famous play of Shakespeare, the title of "The Fault in Our Stars refer to the act when the nobleman Cassius says to Brutus, 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not
in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.'"



But does the book as poet as Shakespeare?



Well, this book is something really different with the Shakespeare thing. It is about the story of death and cancer. It is narrated by 16 years old girl, Hazel whom diagnosed having thyroid cancer since she was 13 years old.



Hazel is forced to joid a support group for teenager whom had cancer by her mother. In there, with her cynical thought and also smart, she met Isaac- a boy whom lost his sight due to cancer and Augustus-Gus, a 17 years handsome boy whom a former basketball player and already lost his leg because of Osteosarcoma-and in a remission. 

For the first sight, Gus is starring loner Hazel for a long time and with the bravery, Hazel is staring his back. Cynical Hazel narrated her thought : “Boys do not have a monopoly on the Staring Business, after all.”

Later, they talk each other and hazel convinces Augustus to read 'An Imperial Affliction (AIA)', her favorite book, and he becomes almost as obsessed with it as she is. In addition to countless text messages and phone calls, Hazel and Gus begin to spend more time together.

But in one day, Hazel's health is worsening. She's been hospitalized for a week and denied to meet Gus. Finally Hazel decided to take a distance from Gus because she don't want Gus hurt of her death someday. Formerly, Gus's girlfriend is also died of cancer. 

But Gus didnt want to stop. Being obsessed with AIA, he finally managed to receive a letter from the asisstant of AIA's writer, Lidewij. The asisstant is excited with the story or 17 years and 16 years sick teenagers and invited them to come to Amsterdam, the AIA's author hometown.

Finally they went to Amsterdam with serious considerations and accompanied by Hazel's mother. After experiencing the best night they spent together, they come to meet Van Houten, AIA's writer and get dissapointed. In fact, Van Houten is just mean old guy.

Later then, Hazel is so much in love with Gus, but Gus is finally reveal the truth about his 'come back cancer'  and has metastasized to several other parts of his body. Even though he starts an aggressive treatment regimen when they return home, he is not expected to survive long.

Well, this is a story about pain. Most of the pain. Different with any cancer-people story that always telling about bravery and how hard the treatment is, Hazel comes with different point of view. Her sarcasms of life reveal how it is living under frightened, lonely, and desperate. Hazel is very brave, but there is the time when she think that she is just grenade to the people arround her. She concerns about her parents, and life after she died. She wants her mother have a life, not only to taken care of her. 

With the simple language, she tries to tell people how it feels to be not having friends as many as ordinary teenager. How it is feel to lost her friend one by one in her support group. Her sense of humor is also fabolous along with Gus, they trying to wakening the sense of living. There are lot of life lesson - a deep thought about the meaning of life like these quotes:

“You have a choice in this world, I believe, about how to tell sad stories, and we made the funny choice:”

“The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.”

Well, the fault of our stars is great love story also though the genre is for teenager). Gus' s love is unconditionally and matured. It is very sad also, I admit it that I am crying reading this book, 

The amazing thing about this book is we can appreciate our life MORE, and have a very different point of view about life.

Very worth to read!!!

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