Hazel is sixteen years old, philosophical, whip smart and an avid reader. She also has stage 4 thyroid cancer and metastasis forming in her lungs. During a group therapy session, she meets Augustus Waters, an amputee, cancer-patient currently in remission. Their meeting becomes a catalyst for friendship, romance, comings of age, enlightenments and disillusionments, and, well, a pretty darn good novel.
I'm not going to lie, I expected to like this from the get go. I'm a fan of John Green generally and beyond that, I love YA novels that deal with more adult themes but don't lose the youth to them. The sweetness. The Fault in Our Stars does an excellent job of that, maintaining the exuberance of adolescence but not ever being condescending about it. It balances emotion, experience, romance and friendship beautifully, and the result is this heartstopping novel of first times and last times.
Beyond that, Hazel is an awesome protagonist, stronger than she knows and snarky and whip smart - it's not hard to see why Gus is swept off his feet by her. And vice versa too, Gus is a pretty solid male lead. Watching the inevitable conclusion to their romance is tenderly explored, not glamorised, but not entirely bleak either, which is a pretty impressive feat on Green's part. And, y'know, not going to lie, I may have cried for about a year at the end of it too.
4 out of 5 video-game adaption novels.
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