Minute Review
I’m a little behind in reading this book, but to be honest, I’m not entertained by stories of immense sadness (the holocaust, slavery, kids dying, etc.). The title intrigued me, as it’s a play on the Shakespeare quote “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves”. This book is basically about two witty teens dying from cancer. Their entire situation is the evidence that “there is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars.” I thought it was well written and an interesting portrayal of the life of Professional Sick Kids, I give it 3 (of 5) stars.
Click on the book cover for a link to the Amazon site for this book.
Glad to see this book is still making the rounds of Cannonball Read. I liked it more than you, but still wanted to congratulate you on posting the first review!
I’m surprised that your review and response to this book was so tepid, but I understand how the subject matter can be a turn off. That was one reason I didn’t want to read it when one of my students first recommended it to me. But given the book to read (so that I could no longer use to excuse that I didn’t get to make it to the library in time), I found myself consuming the story in a six-hour time frame on a lazy Sunday. Trying to finish the book, I was an emotional wreck from the point at which I found out about Gus’s diagnosis.
While I did find the story to be somewhat cliche (and for many reasons on an emotional level very similar to Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper), the authenticity of Hazel’s voice got me emotionally invested in her and the other characters. In all, Green captivated me with a story of love–one that highlights how one cannot be too young to experience love; how knowledge of impeding death pushes us to be emotionally honest, adventurous, and brave; and how in the struggle to overcome cancer (or any disease/sickness and many other matters of life), nothing is predictable.
I genuinely loved the book and recommend it highly to my new group of students. It was the runaway hit for independent reading with a lot of the female students last year.
I knew that my feelings about ‘The Fault in our Stars’ would be in the minority. I appreciate the conversation to be had about the book (to me, the conversation after is also an important part of the experience of the book).
I wanted to address some of Orleans points above:
1- Hazel’s voice- this was my favorite part of the book. I liked her and her perspective on what was happening.
2-One cannot be too young to experience love- I couldn’t help but worry that Gus only loved Hazel because he wanted to do good in the world, and what better thing can you do, but love someone who is dying. I didn’t feel it was ‘fated’ love, it felt more like ‘circumstantial’ love.
3- how knowledge of impending death pushes us- to me, it is more impactful for us to find this push without death looming over our shoulders. And Hazel’s parents, who were going to survive, lost all their adventure. Now, I admit her mom did take classes, but she felt guilty about it, and squeezed that in around her constant care for Hazel.
4- Nothing is predictable- actually I thought this book was all about predictability, I knew she was going to die, I suspected (strongly) that Gus and/or Isaac would die. As a reader I knew they were going to fall in love. I was nervous that she would die before Amsterdam, but given how many pages were left in the novel, that was obvious as well.
Perhaps because I don’t have the immediate fear of death lingering over my shoulder, I don’t want a manual for living while dying.
I was more interested in the fictional book ‘An Imperial Affliction’, than I was with the book I was actually reading.
If you have a group of students, I would be highly interested in their thoughts around the book Little Brother by Cory Doctorow.