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A review by aclypse
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
emotional
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
I guess romance really isn’t my thing. Especially young adult romance. A controversial opinion: I don’t understand why this book is a bestseller and why so many people like it.
To point out the good points first, I really enjoyed the uniqueness of the language. The kids are using quite a lot of sarcastic phrases, and expressions and joke about serious topics. I did find the humor quite witty. I haven’t encountered any books about cancer (because I’ve never searched for them), and I cannot appreciate enough the chosen topic.
I also find it wholesome that Hazel has a favorite book in which the main character resembles her to a decent amount. There is little doubt that many readers might find Hazel relatable. Some struggles are just… persistent.
And I was so elevated to read about Hazel’s and Augustus’s trip to Amsterdam. I was glad it didn’t turn out to be a McGuffin and the trip did frankly happen.
But there are far more bad parts than the good ones.
At first, I was a little pleasantly surprised by the language they use in the book. It seemed fresh and new after reading a bit of intellectual prose. But a few pages in, and it started getting on my nerves. Do people actually talk like that? Have American teens used to talk like that in the 2010s?
And although I found myself relating to Hazel in a few passages, I just couldn’t grow to like her. In fact, I believe I kind of despise her. In the beginning, she seems to be depressed, but then I assume she is trying to be portrayed as ‘smart’ due to her passion for reading, but being ‘smart’ isn’t defined by your love for reading and reciting ‘intellectual quotes’. She quite often acts like a typical maximalist teenager whose only purpose in life is her love. And dare I say the stars had aligned for her as Lidevij Viegenthart (who also feels like a cardboard character to me) made such a trip to deliver her Augusts’ writings. All the way to America! (if I understood correctly)
Augustus did appear a little more interesting, but he’s still quite a blank person I can’t describe properly. And his “dramatic moments” did piss me off quite often (like when he was telling Hazel about his virginity, or when he was acting all suspenseful when the plane was taking off). I only enjoyed the ‘cigarette metaphor’, but even then I didn’t comprehend its purpose.
There was a moment when Augustus’s parents searched the whole house for his writings, and at that moment I wondered, “Would any parents do that? Really?” To that, all I can say is that Gus either has(d) awesome parents or they are this nice only because the author needed it for the plot. And the rest of Augustus’s family… I don’t even remember their names nor their ages nor what purpose did they serve. Only as filler characters, I believe.
Catherine appeared there only twice for the sole purpose of talking about boys.
Literally the only character I found appealing was Peter Van Houten. I knew he was my character right from the start. Peter feels like a real person, one who has lived through a lot and acquired extensive amount of knowledge. I feel like I can understand him.
And he is completely justified for not telling Hazel the stories of his characters, for this, I have to use his quote: "But to be perfectly frank, this childish idea that the author of a novel has some special insight into the characters in the novel . . . it’s ridiculous. That novel was composed of scratches on a page, dear. The characters inhabiting it have no life outside of those scratches. What happened to them? They all ceased to exist the moment the novel ended.”
This book raises the topic of the toughness of living with a deadly and debilitating disease. My (controversial) opinion? If every day of your life is only about surviving or trying to extend it, just die. If someone would want to object, I’m quoting Hazel on this:
> “There will come a time,” I said, “when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this”—I gestured encompassingly—“will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming
soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that’s what everyone else does.
To point out the good points first, I really enjoyed the uniqueness of the language. The kids are using quite a lot of sarcastic phrases, and expressions and joke about serious topics. I did find the humor quite witty. I haven’t encountered any books about cancer (because I’ve never searched for them), and I cannot appreciate enough the chosen topic.
I also find it wholesome that Hazel has a favorite book in which the main character resembles her to a decent amount. There is little doubt that many readers might find Hazel relatable. Some struggles are just… persistent.
And I was so elevated to read about Hazel’s and Augustus’s trip to Amsterdam. I was glad it didn’t turn out to be a McGuffin and the trip did frankly happen.
But there are far more bad parts than the good ones.
At first, I was a little pleasantly surprised by the language they use in the book. It seemed fresh and new after reading a bit of intellectual prose. But a few pages in, and it started getting on my nerves. Do people actually talk like that? Have American teens used to talk like that in the 2010s?
And although I found myself relating to Hazel in a few passages, I just couldn’t grow to like her. In fact, I believe I kind of despise her. In the beginning, she seems to be depressed, but then I assume she is trying to be portrayed as ‘smart’ due to her passion for reading, but being ‘smart’ isn’t defined by your love for reading and reciting ‘intellectual quotes’. She quite often acts like a typical maximalist teenager whose only purpose in life is her love. And dare I say the stars had aligned for her as Lidevij Viegenthart (who also feels like a cardboard character to me) made such a trip to deliver her Augusts’ writings. All the way to America! (if I understood correctly)
Augustus did appear a little more interesting, but he’s still quite a blank person I can’t describe properly. And his “dramatic moments” did piss me off quite often (like when he was telling Hazel about his virginity, or when he was acting all suspenseful when the plane was taking off). I only enjoyed the ‘cigarette metaphor’, but even then I didn’t comprehend its purpose.
There was a moment when Augustus’s parents searched the whole house for his writings, and at that moment I wondered, “Would any parents do that? Really?” To that, all I can say is that Gus either has(d) awesome parents or they are this nice only because the author needed it for the plot. And the rest of Augustus’s family… I don’t even remember their names nor their ages nor what purpose did they serve. Only as filler characters, I believe.
Catherine appeared there only twice for the sole purpose of talking about boys.
Literally the only character I found appealing was Peter Van Houten. I knew he was my character right from the start. Peter feels like a real person, one who has lived through a lot and acquired extensive amount of knowledge. I feel like I can understand him.
And he is completely justified for not telling Hazel the stories of his characters, for this, I have to use his quote: "But to be perfectly frank, this childish idea that the author of a novel has some special insight into the characters in the novel . . . it’s ridiculous. That novel was composed of scratches on a page, dear. The characters inhabiting it have no life outside of those scratches. What happened to them? They all ceased to exist the moment the novel ended.”
This book raises the topic of the toughness of living with a deadly and debilitating disease. My (controversial) opinion? If every day of your life is only about surviving or trying to extend it, just die. If someone would want to object, I’m quoting Hazel on this:
> “There will come a time,” I said, “when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this”—I gestured encompassingly—“will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming
soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that’s what everyone else does.