Book Review: The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

Title: The Fault In Our Stars
Author:  John Green
Reading level: Young Adult
Genre:  Contemporary
Size: 313 Pages
Release Date: Januray 10th 2012
Publisher: Penguin/Dutton Books
Source: My Personal Library
Find It: Goodreads | Amazon | BN | The Book Depository 

Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 13, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumors in her lungs... for now.

Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumors tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault.

Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind.

"Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over,ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death."

“My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.”

"I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you.” 

“Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.”

“Grief does not change you...It reveals you.” 

“I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is improbably biased toward the consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it-or my observation of it-is temporary?” 

“The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we'd done were less real and important than they had been hours before.” 

“You do not immortalize the lost by writing about them. Language buries, but does not resurrect.” 

“You could hear the wind in the leaves, and on that wind traveled the screams of the kids on the playground in the distance, little kids figuring out how to be alive, how to navigate a world that wasn't made for them by navigating a playground that was.” 

There is no way that I can even attempt to write a reasonably cohesive review for this book.  As Augustus said, "My thought are stars I can't Fathom into constellations." So I leave you with some random thoughts:

• This book transcends targeted reading audiences in both "reading level" and "genre".  In other words, whatever you like to read, whether you like to read, if you haven't read this book...go read it.
• This is not a book about cancer, death, or love...this is a book about life.  And for better or worse cancer, death and love are inextricable pieces thereof.
• You will cry though out this book, so make sure you have tissues handy. 
• Ironically though, most of the time, you will be smiling through the tears.
• If you are human, as I presume you all are, this book will make you view the universe differently...or rather view how you view the universe differently, or how you wish the universe would view you, or even just what exactly the universe is...
• At my ripe old age of 38, I have yet to ever re-read a book (not counting picture books read to children)...this is the first book going on my newly created "To be re-read" list.

5 Timepieces

&

5 Stars 

(Because yes...it is that good)