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An Imperial Affliction
6 pages repeated of An Imperial Affliction, the book read by Hazel Grace in The Fault in Our Stars, written by John Green and printed into a full sized book as a perk in the 2014 Project For Awesome.
502 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
996 people are currently reading
27621 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 126 reviews
January 13, 2015
Pretty good for a book that does not exist.
January 29, 2019
5 STARS! Hazel Grace's most favourite book of all time; a unique, never-to-really-exist literary masterpiece :'( 😍
A 6-page excerpt was written for the shots in the movie and released in 2014.
As I'll never have access to the full book (it doesn't exist) I will have to be content with my 6 pages and the referenced quotes in The Fault in Our Stars ... so, consequently, this review is about any content accessible about AIA anywhere.
It's really the story and all cause the book's not really there for you to fully read it—BUT you can read The Fault in Our Stars, which revolves a great deal round this fictional book :)
Storyline
Hazel Grace seems to be the only person who read the whole book and who is also capable of giving a proper review. And since, thankfully, she's already done that, let's let Hazel tell us what this book is about:
“AIA is about this girl named Anna (who narrates the story) and her one-eyed mom, who is a professional gardener obsessed with tulips, and they have a normal lower-middle-class life in a little central California town until Anna gets this rare blood cancer.
“But it's not a cancer book, because cancer books suck. Like, in cancer books, the cancer person starts a charity that raises money to fight cancer, right? And this commitment to charity reminds the cancer person of the essential goodness of humanity and makes him/her feel loved and encouraged because s/he will leave a cancer-curing legacy.
“But in AIA, Anna decides that being a person with cancer who starts a cancer charity is a bit narcissistic, so she starts a charity called The Anna Foundation for People with Cancer Who Want to Cure Cholera.”
“So as the story goes on, she gets sicker, the treatments and disease racing to kill her, and her mom falls in love with this Dutch tulip trader Anna calls the Dutch Tulip Man.
“The Dutch Tulip Man has lots of money and very eccentric ideas about how to treat cancer, but Anna thinks this guy might be a con man and possibly not even Dutch, and then just as the possibly Dutch guy and her mom are about to get married and Anna is about to start this crazy new treatment regimen involving wheatgrass and low doses of arsenic, the book ends right in the middle of a—”
To be thorough, I think Augustus Waters' reaction when he finishes reading the book is the best way to wrap it up:
“Tell me my copy is missing the last twenty pages or something. Hazel Grace, tell me I have not reached the end of this book.
OH MY GOD DO THEY GET MARRIED OR NOT OH MY GOD WHAT IS THIS.
I guess Anna died and so it just ends? CRUEL.”
Symbolism
There's a tremendous amount of symbols in this book and I WISH THE WHOLE BOOK EXISTED BECAUSE I NEED TO OBSESS OVER IT 😫
For example, Peter Van Houten tells Hazel that the Dutch Tulip Man is a representation of God.
At first I didn't get it, but then I did and realized what the author (Van Houten, or aka John Green) wanted to say and how he managed to say it is just GENUIS.
Death is also a tangible thing in this book, expected and dealt with in symbolic or metaphorical ways.
And it's just plain brilliant and true and unique and such a literal representation of the truth and oh man do I wish John would write it...
Every time Anna gets morphine, we see how her thoughts scatter; every time Anna falls sleep, we read how her thoughts hit a brick wall abruptly; and when she dies and stops writing, we watch the book end like this:
Storytelling
Everything about this fictional nonexistent book is fabulous and I loved the idea through and through :))
Companions
Also by John Green:
• Turtles All the Way Down [ MY REVIEW ]
• The Fault in Our Stars [ MY REVIEW ]
• Looking for Alaska [ MY REVIEW ]
• Paper Towns [ MY REVIEW ]
• An Abundance of Katherine's [ MY REVIEW ]
• Will Grayson, Will Grayson with David Levithan [ MY REVIEW ]
• Let It Snow with Maureen Johnson & Lauren Myracle [ MY REVIEW ]
• The Price of Dawn [ MY REVIEW ]
As the tide washed in, the Dutch Tulip Man faced the ocean: “Conjoiner rejoinder poisoner concealer revelator. Look at it, rising up and rising down, taking everything with it.”An Imperial Affliction is a fictional book written by a fictional author named Peter Van Houten, the brain child of John Green for his spectacular book The Fault in Our Stars.
“What's that?” I asked
“Water,” the Dutchman said. “Well, and time.”
A 6-page excerpt was written for the shots in the movie and released in 2014.
As I'll never have access to the full book (it doesn't exist) I will have to be content with my 6 pages and the referenced quotes in The Fault in Our Stars ... so, consequently, this review is about any content accessible about AIA anywhere.
It's really the story and all cause the book's not really there for you to fully read it—BUT you can read The Fault in Our Stars, which revolves a great deal round this fictional book :)
Storyline
Hazel Grace seems to be the only person who read the whole book and who is also capable of giving a proper review. And since, thankfully, she's already done that, let's let Hazel tell us what this book is about:
“AIA is about this girl named Anna (who narrates the story) and her one-eyed mom, who is a professional gardener obsessed with tulips, and they have a normal lower-middle-class life in a little central California town until Anna gets this rare blood cancer.
“But it's not a cancer book, because cancer books suck. Like, in cancer books, the cancer person starts a charity that raises money to fight cancer, right? And this commitment to charity reminds the cancer person of the essential goodness of humanity and makes him/her feel loved and encouraged because s/he will leave a cancer-curing legacy.
“But in AIA, Anna decides that being a person with cancer who starts a cancer charity is a bit narcissistic, so she starts a charity called The Anna Foundation for People with Cancer Who Want to Cure Cholera.”
We're all barnacles on the container ship of consciousness.“Also, Anna is honest about all of it in a way no one else really is: Throughout the book, she refers to herself as the side effect, which is just totally correct. Cancer kids are essentially side effects of the relentless mutation that made the diversity of life on earth possible.
“So as the story goes on, she gets sicker, the treatments and disease racing to kill her, and her mom falls in love with this Dutch tulip trader Anna calls the Dutch Tulip Man.
“The Dutch Tulip Man has lots of money and very eccentric ideas about how to treat cancer, but Anna thinks this guy might be a con man and possibly not even Dutch, and then just as the possibly Dutch guy and her mom are about to get married and Anna is about to start this crazy new treatment regimen involving wheatgrass and low doses of arsenic, the book ends right in the middle of a—”
To be thorough, I think Augustus Waters' reaction when he finishes reading the book is the best way to wrap it up:
“Tell me my copy is missing the last twenty pages or something. Hazel Grace, tell me I have not reached the end of this book.
OH MY GOD DO THEY GET MARRIED OR NOT OH MY GOD WHAT IS THIS.
I guess Anna died and so it just ends? CRUEL.”
Symbolism
There's a tremendous amount of symbols in this book and I WISH THE WHOLE BOOK EXISTED BECAUSE I NEED TO OBSESS OVER IT 😫
For example, Peter Van Houten tells Hazel that the Dutch Tulip Man is a representation of God.
At first I didn't get it, but then I did and realized what the author (Van Houten, or aka John Green) wanted to say and how he managed to say it is just GENUIS.
Death is also a tangible thing in this book, expected and dealt with in symbolic or metaphorical ways.
The risen sun too bright in my losing eyes.Then there's the main symbolism: every thought ends in the middle of a sentence when we fall sleep, or pass out, or, inevitability, die.
And it's just plain brilliant and true and unique and such a literal representation of the truth and oh man do I wish John would write it...
Every time Anna gets morphine, we see how her thoughts scatter; every time Anna falls sleep, we read how her thoughts hit a brick wall abruptly; and when she dies and stops writing, we watch the book end like this:
I’m standing up rod straight, scared to step toward the waves and scared to step away from them, the water so gray and the clouds so low that the horizon is an abstraction, and the tide is way—
Storytelling
Pain demands to be felt.There's the famous TFiOS quote, right out of AIA :) I will never stop loving it, specially this more complete version.
It is the ultimate superhero: backs down to no one, overcomes every obstacle. All the nerve blocks and neurochemical disruptors and inflammation antagonists line up, and pain barrels through them all, refusing to go unheard, bringing justice where otherwise there would only be peace.
I wondered where my memories were stored. Does a memory live inside a single neuron? No. It can’t. You can’t pick memories out of a brain like shrapnel from a wound. The memory lives among and amid a bunch of neurons, in the spaces between them; a memory does not actually have a place. The memories aren’t anywhere: memory is just what you mean when you say “I”.It's John-Green-amazing and Peter-Van-Houten-special with a powerful prose that I want more of!
Everything about this fictional nonexistent book is fabulous and I loved the idea through and through :))
I remind myself that no single moment is unbearable, that all will be borne.
Companions
Also by John Green:
• Turtles All the Way Down [ MY REVIEW ]
• The Fault in Our Stars [ MY REVIEW ]
• Looking for Alaska [ MY REVIEW ]
• Paper Towns [ MY REVIEW ]
• An Abundance of Katherine's [ MY REVIEW ]
• Will Grayson, Will Grayson with David Levithan [ MY REVIEW ]
• Let It Snow with Maureen Johnson & Lauren Myracle [ MY REVIEW ]
• The Price of Dawn [ MY REVIEW ]
May 15, 2015
The inception of books. This five pages book is richer than most five thousand pages books.
June 2, 2019
A book inside a book. A bookception.
If you've read "The Fault in Our Stars" and got insanely curious as to what Hazel found in a book that made her use her last wish on earth on a journey to the other end of the world just to meet the author of her favorite book, this is the answer. I mean this was supposed to be the answer if it were an actual book but it is a figment of our imagination and I am utterly confused as I am writing this review.
However, this still remains to be a triumph for the actual author because he wrote a book and in this book, there is a fictional book that makes thousands of people want to read it even though we all know that it is not real. And the strange thing is that we're still waiting for it with great anticipation. This non-existent book is a success already.
If you've read "The Fault in Our Stars" and got insanely curious as to what Hazel found in a book that made her use her last wish on earth on a journey to the other end of the world just to meet the author of her favorite book, this is the answer. I mean this was supposed to be the answer if it were an actual book but it is a figment of our imagination and I am utterly confused as I am writing this review.
However, this still remains to be a triumph for the actual author because he wrote a book and in this book, there is a fictional book that makes thousands of people want to read it even though we all know that it is not real. And the strange thing is that we're still waiting for it with great anticipation. This non-existent book is a success already.
February 23, 2015
You have got to be kidding me. They are listing it as a book? Ok, I technically got it as a perk on P4A and read it so I'm adding it! This is ridiculous.
I wish it was an actual book though.
I wish it was an actual book though.
July 10, 2015
This is something really coooll !!! Gotta love John green. your are genius DFTBA !
December 20, 2015
A fake book that came true. John Green has done it again!
There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference –
Where the Meanings, are –
None may teach it – Any –
'Tis the seal Despair –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air –
When it comes, the Landscape listens –
Shadows – hold their breath –
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –
Emily Dickinson
There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference –
Where the Meanings, are –
None may teach it – Any –
'Tis the seal Despair –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air –
When it comes, the Landscape listens –
Shadows – hold their breath –
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –
Emily Dickinson
March 14, 2023
Why something was written when it has to be left unfinished? Just to keep the hype going around for the readers of TFIOS was this written, huh??
Though I like the way Anna was described and as I already mentioned earlier in my reviews of TFIOS, that, John (Pseudo: Peter Van Houten) is too good in expressing the emotions of an opposite gender. He mastered that and hence he described each emotion of Anna like he did with Hazel. This could have been much better if written full but it left me unsatisfied for the course of Carolyn's Future & Dael's stand for Anna's family.
I believe this could be adapted into some manga comics, then or directly to Anime also.
Though I like the way Anna was described and as I already mentioned earlier in my reviews of TFIOS, that, John (Pseudo: Peter Van Houten) is too good in expressing the emotions of an opposite gender. He mastered that and hence he described each emotion of Anna like he did with Hazel. This could have been much better if written full but it left me unsatisfied for the course of Carolyn's Future & Dael's stand for Anna's family.
I believe this could be adapted into some manga comics, then or directly to Anime also.
February 27, 2015
To begin, a quick shout out to all my fellow Nerdfighters for an amazing Project for Awesome. It was my first time participating, and it was incredible and awe-inspiring. Whether I stayed up until three in the morning with Hank and Olga (what an amazing juggler!), refreshed the Indiegogo page to see how much money was raised, or voted for the P4A videos, I never felt alone in a weekend where I desperately needed a friend. I lost a paper I worked on all Friday and I had to study for finals, but I was still smiling because there was juggling and decreasing world suck and amazing perks going on. Thank you, Nerdfighteria, for never ceasing to amaze me with your awesome.
With that said, obviously one of my perks was the PDF of An Imperial Affliction. It wasn't actually that long, which made me sad, but I still thought it was good. In just a few pages, John managed to create the idea of this novel that Hazel and Gus have been building up for us for almost three years. What would An Imperial Affliction be like, we asked. Turns out it is sort of like a John Green novel. It makes sense to me in a way that has nothing to do with the fact that John Green wrote it. Peter van Houten is not John, we know that much, but John has said that Peter van Houten is what he could be without his family and friends, without people who love him. John and Peter van Houten share many of the same ideas about storytelling, the importance of those stories, and the author's and readers' roles in them.
We have been given just enough of An Imperial Affliction to be able to imagine its greatness to Hazel and Gus. It is the novel that they emotionally connect to, the novel they will always love even if it is not considered great literature. In the real world, there are a handful of books that make us feel that way. In TFIOS, there is only An Imperial Affliction. Well done, John, and best wishes!
With that said, obviously one of my perks was the PDF of An Imperial Affliction. It wasn't actually that long, which made me sad, but I still thought it was good. In just a few pages, John managed to create the idea of this novel that Hazel and Gus have been building up for us for almost three years. What would An Imperial Affliction be like, we asked. Turns out it is sort of like a John Green novel. It makes sense to me in a way that has nothing to do with the fact that John Green wrote it. Peter van Houten is not John, we know that much, but John has said that Peter van Houten is what he could be without his family and friends, without people who love him. John and Peter van Houten share many of the same ideas about storytelling, the importance of those stories, and the author's and readers' roles in them.
We have been given just enough of An Imperial Affliction to be able to imagine its greatness to Hazel and Gus. It is the novel that they emotionally connect to, the novel they will always love even if it is not considered great literature. In the real world, there are a handful of books that make us feel that way. In TFIOS, there is only An Imperial Affliction. Well done, John, and best wishes!
May 6, 2025
i love that john green wrote a little bit of this as a concept, and i hate that john green wrote a little bit of this as a concept. maybe it should have remained a mystery if he wasn't going to make it a full five hundred page novel...
April 14, 2015
It was so amazing, I am going to read this book over and over again it was that good.
March 15, 2015
Idk how to read it! Help, please?
April 19, 2016
- الفكرة عبقرية جدا جداااااااااااااا .... الكتاب يفوق الوصف .....رائع فعلاً !
February 22, 2019
Really good. I wish the full book existed.
June 1, 2023
How smart is John Green to make up a book title with a fake author, and it becomes wildly famous that this “fake” book has a Goodreads page and reviews , I love this 😂😂😂❤️
The book in the other hand is super wow to a book that doesn’t exist😝
The book in the other hand is super wow to a book that doesn’t exist😝
December 13, 2021
oh how I wish this book actually existed
June 8, 2020
Hazel Grace’s favorite book of all time, was her drive to continue on. It’s a beautiful symbol for not being a real book. Showing readers that you must live life to its fullest!
February 23, 2016
No one seems to have researched it, so...
This was written by John Green as a perk for P4A
It is only 6 pages that John wrote as a perk. You can't find it anymore, but I still have the link:
http://www.projectforawesome.com/stat...
This is it. There is no full book, this is all that was written, you can't buy it anywhere else.
This was written by John Green as a perk for P4A
It is only 6 pages that John wrote as a perk. You can't find it anymore, but I still have the link:
http://www.projectforawesome.com/stat...
This is it. There is no full book, this is all that was written, you can't buy it anywhere else.
October 3, 2023
A BOOK THAT DOESN'T EVEN EXIST
I've always been curious to know what Hazel Grace Lancaster favourite book was like. And I think that many do. John Green made an imaginary book as much famous as The fault in our stars. This is actually insane.
I wish they make it an actual book, so we have the ANSWER.
I've always been curious to know what Hazel Grace Lancaster favourite book was like. And I think that many do. John Green made an imaginary book as much famous as The fault in our stars. This is actually insane.
I wish they make it an actual book, so we have the ANSWER.
March 14, 2016
I forgot that I had this from last years P4A and I wanted more than six pages. I don't know if I would want John to write this as a full blown novel, because let's be honest, I don't think I could read another book like TFioS without becoming a crying mess, but I definitely would like more!
April 27, 2015
Pretty good for a book that does not exist.
September 21, 2017
I would like to know the end :)
October 4, 2018
https://www.wattpad.com/story/4470555...
I guess this is it.
I guess this is it.
Read
August 5, 2019Technically, if you read The Fault In Our Stars, you read this small book. Because it is in the novel :)
Want to read
October 22, 2019Amazing
June 27, 2023
GUS and HAZEL
Read
September 4, 2024Yep I just finished a non existing book.
As the tide washed in, the Dutch Tulip Man faced the ocean: “Conjoiner rejoinder poisoner concealer revelator. Look at it, rising up and rising down, taking everything with it.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Water,” the Dutchman said. “Well, and time.”
The story narrated by Hazel is:
AIA is about this girl named Anna (who narrates the story) and her one-eyed mom, who is a professional gardener obsessed with tulips, and they have a normal lower-middle-class life in a little central California town until Anna gets this rare blood cancer.
But it’s not a cancer book, because cancer books suck. Like, in cancer books, the cancer person starts a charity that raises money to fight cancer, right? And this commitment to charity reminds the cancer person of the essential goodness of humanity and makes him/her feel loved and encouraged because s/he will leave a cancer-curing legacy. But in AIA, Anna decides that being a person with cancer who starts a cancer charity is a bit narcissistic, so she starts a charity called The Anna Foundation for People with Cancer Who Want to Cure Cholera.
Also, Anna is honest about all of it in a way no one else really is: Throughout the book, she refers to herself as the side effect, which is just totally correct. Cancer kids are essentially side effects of the relentless mutation that made the diversity of life on earth possible. So as the story goes on, she gets sicker, the treatments and disease racing to kill her, and her mom falls in love with this Dutch tulip trader Anna calls the Dutch Tulip Man. The Dutch Tulip Man has lots of money and very eccentric ideas about how to treat cancer, but Anna thinks this guy might be a con man and possibly not even Dutch, and then just as the possibly Dutch guy and her mom are about to get married and Anna is about to start this crazy new treatment regimen involving wheatgrass and low doses of arsenic. (the book ends right in the middle of a sentence)
As the tide washed in, the Dutch Tulip Man faced the ocean: “Conjoiner rejoinder poisoner concealer revelator. Look at it, rising up and rising down, taking everything with it.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Water,” the Dutchman said. “Well, and time.”
The story narrated by Hazel is:
AIA is about this girl named Anna (who narrates the story) and her one-eyed mom, who is a professional gardener obsessed with tulips, and they have a normal lower-middle-class life in a little central California town until Anna gets this rare blood cancer.
But it’s not a cancer book, because cancer books suck. Like, in cancer books, the cancer person starts a charity that raises money to fight cancer, right? And this commitment to charity reminds the cancer person of the essential goodness of humanity and makes him/her feel loved and encouraged because s/he will leave a cancer-curing legacy. But in AIA, Anna decides that being a person with cancer who starts a cancer charity is a bit narcissistic, so she starts a charity called The Anna Foundation for People with Cancer Who Want to Cure Cholera.
Also, Anna is honest about all of it in a way no one else really is: Throughout the book, she refers to herself as the side effect, which is just totally correct. Cancer kids are essentially side effects of the relentless mutation that made the diversity of life on earth possible. So as the story goes on, she gets sicker, the treatments and disease racing to kill her, and her mom falls in love with this Dutch tulip trader Anna calls the Dutch Tulip Man. The Dutch Tulip Man has lots of money and very eccentric ideas about how to treat cancer, but Anna thinks this guy might be a con man and possibly not even Dutch, and then just as the possibly Dutch guy and her mom are about to get married and Anna is about to start this crazy new treatment regimen involving wheatgrass and low doses of arsenic. (the book ends right in the middle of a sentence)
December 29, 2020
Super special shout-out and massive thank you to Nerdfighter/Tuatarian Miranda for sending me her physical copy of An Imperial Affliction after I've been searching for it for literal years. I'm a massive John Green nerd, and the fact that I had never gotten to read these six pages made me sad, so I'm super happy and eternally grateful to Miranda for letting me have this experience!!
While there's not much to comment on story-wise because it's only six pages of text repeated, I love how different from the rest of John's writing it feels. It truly feels like a text written by a different author, and I love that.
While there's not much to comment on story-wise because it's only six pages of text repeated, I love how different from the rest of John's writing it feels. It truly feels like a text written by a different author, and I love that.
August 23, 2019
Was reading The Fault in Our Stars, searched for the favourite book of Hazel just out of curiosity, and found this piece of story which had 15 Chapters in all named "AN IMPERIAL AFFLICTION " posted by wolvestowolves (https://www.wattpad.com/story/3802526...) and read it, its story just seemed so similar to the story of the book mentioned in TFIOS. Liked it. But it seemed bit rushed, but it was a good attempt to maintain the similar curiosity as to what happen next.
My rating : 2.5 stars
My rating : 2.5 stars
April 1, 2021
I see that Dickinson reference Mr Green.
The Full Text of “There's a certain Slant of light”
There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses,like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are –
None may teach it – Any –
'Tis the Seal Despair –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air –
When it comes, the Landscape listens –
Shadows – hold their breath –
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –
The Full Text of “There's a certain Slant of light”
There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses,like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are –
None may teach it – Any –
'Tis the Seal Despair –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air –
When it comes, the Landscape listens –
Shadows – hold their breath –
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –
Displaying 1 - 30 of 126 reviews