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A review by imsarah_moran
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
emotional
funny
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Instead of giving a synopsis or a breakdown of what I thought about the plot, the characters, and Green’s writing (I loved all of the above), I will only write what this book did to me besides wrecking me. 😂
“‘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 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.’”
Not only did this story make me sad (yes, I cried at the end, dang-nab-it! 😭) but it revealed something about me that I never noticed before. I realized that I was afraid to die. I had always told myself and others that I wasn’t fearful of death because there was a heaven and I believed I was going there.
But when I read Gus’s desire to be remembered, leaving a scar or a mark on this world to know that his life meant something, I knew that that’s why I wanted to live. I want my life to mean something. I want to be greater than my ancestors ever were and ever will be so that I can leave a scar on this world and be satisfied knowing I left it. It’s probably a weird form of ego or arrogance, but it’s true. As Amy March from Little Women said, “I want to be great or nothing.” Nothing is out of the question, but greatness seems like a futile achievement that is attained through birth, privilege, status, money, luck, or success. But sometimes being great isn’t how much money is in your wallet or how many awards are collecting dust on your shelves. Sometimes greatness is simply the act of loving, of being present with your friends and family who may know or never get to know that you are enduring life’s pain and hardships on your own, leaving your mark in their lives and vice versa. But you keep going anyway because deep down we know life is too beautiful, too sweet not to live for, even though pain is scary and unbearable at times. “‘That’s the thing about pain,’ Augustus said, and then glanced back at me. ‘It demands to be felt.’”
“The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.”
Anyway, those are my thoughts. I’m sorry I’m being so morose and melancholic. 😅 But I can’t think of anything else to write except what I just wrote. It was on my mind and I wanted to remember how I felt about the book. I’ll probably read this review in a year or two, hate it, and want to rewrite it, but for now, this is all I’ve got. I really enjoyed this book and I’m so glad I finally got to read it. Took me a few years, but I read it. 😅
“‘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 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.’”
Not only did this story make me sad (yes, I cried at the end, dang-nab-it! 😭) but it revealed something about me that I never noticed before. I realized that I was afraid to die. I had always told myself and others that I wasn’t fearful of death because there was a heaven and I believed I was going there.
But when I read Gus’s desire to be remembered, leaving a scar or a mark on this world to know that his life meant something, I knew that that’s why I wanted to live. I want my life to mean something. I want to be greater than my ancestors ever were and ever will be so that I can leave a scar on this world and be satisfied knowing I left it. It’s probably a weird form of ego or arrogance, but it’s true. As Amy March from Little Women said, “I want to be great or nothing.” Nothing is out of the question, but greatness seems like a futile achievement that is attained through birth, privilege, status, money, luck, or success. But sometimes being great isn’t how much money is in your wallet or how many awards are collecting dust on your shelves. Sometimes greatness is simply the act of loving, of being present with your friends and family who may know or never get to know that you are enduring life’s pain and hardships on your own, leaving your mark in their lives and vice versa. But you keep going anyway because deep down we know life is too beautiful, too sweet not to live for, even though pain is scary and unbearable at times. “‘That’s the thing about pain,’ Augustus said, and then glanced back at me. ‘It demands to be felt.’”
“The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.”
Anyway, those are my thoughts. I’m sorry I’m being so morose and melancholic. 😅 But I can’t think of anything else to write except what I just wrote. It was on my mind and I wanted to remember how I felt about the book. I’ll probably read this review in a year or two, hate it, and want to rewrite it, but for now, this is all I’ve got. I really enjoyed this book and I’m so glad I finally got to read it. Took me a few years, but I read it. 😅