I first read John Green when I picked up a galley of Paper Towns at BEA a few years ago. I devoured it within a day or two and enjoyed it a lot. I had issues with the end, though, which I feared might be John Green's Thing, so I didn't pick up his other books (Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines) even though I'd heard great things about both because there's nothing more annoying than loving a book EXCEPT FOR THE ENDING of that book, am I right?
The buzz I heard about his newest book, The Fault in Our Stars, (and who I was hearing the buzz from) became too loud to ignore, though, so I finally read it over the weekend.
It's the best book I've read in a year, since I finished Water for Elephants, and if I will ever be so lucky as to create an Official Required Reading list for my friends and family, this book will be on it.
(Warning: Very slight spoilers ahead, so read with caution.)
It's a story about Hazel, a teenage cancer patient who's terminal but has been bought some extra years through an experimental cancer drug. She's withdrawn from her life, stays at home with her parents most of the time, except when she begrudgingly goes to a local support group. It's there she meets Augustus, another cancer patient who charms her, saves her, breaks her, and together they experience all the beautiful things you experience when first falling in love, especially when you're young but also possess that rare perspective dying can gift.
It sounds like a plot that could get depressing and fast and it's not that it doesn't. (I cried a lot reading this book.) It's just that it's so beautiful. I like YA fiction, but so often the story and character development (and especially the dialogue) can feel disconnected and safe. A little too watered down and appeasing, if that makes any sense. Not this book. Everything just felt right and earnest and honest to me.
Some of the vocabulary felt a little bit grasping -- would a 17-year-old really use that particular word? -- but I often believed these characters actually would. I also liked both characters, which is another rare thing in YA fiction. It's just tough to write likable, relatable teenagers who are also still clearly teenagers but I found myself really enjoying these characters beyond the plot.
One other (kinda small) thing: I often hate how teenage girls are written as being beautiful but never believing they're beautiful. A "He was staring at me and I couldn't figure out why!" kind of thing. (It was one of my few issues with Katniss in The Hunger Games, actually.) The Fault in Our Stars started to do this, and I felt myself getting annoyed, but then it quickly (and thankfully) changed the pace and tone. You believed this young girl was beautiful and she never really had to be convinced that this attractive boy liked her even if she didn't see what he saw. It was ultimately more about her being unassuming than being a girl who thought she wasn't worthy of him.
I highlighted so many exquisite parts of this book -- and one thing I love about the Kindle is that you can look at all your highlights and notes in list form, which is much more efficient for revisiting than my old system of flipping to each doggy-eared page -- and I thought about sharing some here, but there'd be no context, so just please read the book and when you get to the very, very end, re-read the last few lines and tell me if they don't punch you in the gut, over and over, in the very best possible way.