The Fault in Our Stars

This book was beautiful. I read it all in one night, and the next day I had a book hangover from how good it was. It's extremely difficult to explain to people why it's so good- once I say "it's about two teenagers with cancer" the person's eyes glaze over and I know I've lost them. It is so much more than a "cancer book," though.

It's a love story, but not just the love story of the main character, Hazel, and her boyfriend, Augustus. The love that really got to me in this book was the love between Hazel and her parents. Hazel has terminal cancer, and her parents have lived for years not knowing if their daughter would live another day. There's a line where Hazel wonders about how her dad feels every day when he leaves for work- knowing that every morning could be the last time he sees her alive. And her mom has the full-time job of caring for Hazel, which leads Hazel to wonder what her mom will do when she's gone.

The Fault in Our Stars doesn't pull punches. What happens to the characters is sad, brutally sad, and I don't even know how many times I cried while reading it. But it doesn't try to make you cry- that's just the reality of their lives. And there are many happy, funny moments too. I'm not being very articulate about this book, and it's because it was so perfect that I don't know what to say beyond that. This is the kind of book where once you finish it, you want to go out and buy it for everyone you know so that they can experience it too (if only hardcovers weren't so expensive).

As Lev Grossman said in his review for TIME's Top 10 of the Year, "The Fault in Our Stars is a love story, one of the most genuine and moving ones in recent American fiction, but it’s also an existential tragedy of tremendous intelligence and courage and sadness."