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The Fault in Our Stars

John Green

Start date: January 1, 2014

Finish date: January 31, 2014

Discussion: BOTM

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By Little Bee · 3 posts · 6 views

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Sprinkle With Murder
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What Members Thought

Jul 05, 2013 Aparajitabasu rated it it was amazing

Shelves: young-adult, fiction, romance, contemporary-fiction

Original Link to the review at my blog Le' Grande Codex - here

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My first John Green book and I am mighty pleased with how the experience turned out for me. Definitely did not expect a YA cancer tragedy story to be funny or even possess an ounce of humor. But this oddball of a perfection had it in leaps and bounds. Green's spellbinding rich narrative is enough to make us dive into its turbulent sea of words. An experience never to be forgotten.

Literally speechless at Green's fantastic creat ...more

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Dec 20, 2013 Szidonia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favourite-books

This book is BRILLIANT. It's funny, sad and very realistic. Though I didn't love Hazel, I did love Gus, and the blind guy, they were hilarious and they made the book so so easy to enjoy. The ending was also BRILLIANT, I loved it!!!!! I don't even know what else to say, I guess words just aren't enough to describe how much I absolutely loved this book.

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Feb 12, 2014 Tony Talbot rated it liked it

The cancer that seventeen-year-old Hazel survived left her lungs in tatters and tied to an oxygen bottle for the rest of her life – however long that may be. Her mother suggests she visits a support group, where she runs into Augustus Waters...

This has been at the edge of my reading-pile for at least two or three years now, and I finally picked it up. (One of the reasons I delayed was Becky's review (https://beckysblogs.wordpress.com/201...), where she rated it...okay. Didn't set the world on fi The cancer that seventeen-year-old Hazel survived left her lungs in tatters and tied to an oxygen bottle for the rest of her life – however long that may be. Her mother suggests she visits a support group, where she runs into Augustus Waters...

This has been at the edge of my reading-pile for at least two or three years now, and I finally picked it up. (One of the reasons I delayed was Becky's review (https://beckysblogs.wordpress.com/201...), where she rated it...okay. Didn't set the world on fire for her. I trust her judgement on books, which is why it's taken me so long. But I digress.)

The first thing I noticed when I was reading this – and I'm talking Chapter One – is that no seventeen year old in the history of the world talks like Gus and Hazel. I'm a pretty smart guy; I've know some very smart people. I have never met ANYONE who used the word univalent in a sentence. No one. People simply don't talk like this. Hazel knows what an oncogene is; she knows the word hamartia; Why then, doesn't she know the word ontological?

Green seems determined to be obscure and borderline pretentious with his language and his characters, and they suffer because of it. Their conversations are superficial, for the most part; cocktail party debate on the breakfast-only nature of scrambled eggs.

I got very little from Hazel and Gus but mostly surfaces. It felt like I rarely saw the places where they lived and dreamt. Because of it, they're as superficial as the conversations they hold, and easily forgotten.

Fortunately, the dialogue settled down after a while and approached a normal level. Green definitely has different narrative voices for Gus and Hazel, there was no trouble telling them apart. His wordplay and love of puns makes the dialogue – when it does work – sparkle and shine. Make no mistake that Green is a smart guy...but he seems intent on preening his feathers and flapping his wings to show off.

There are moments which do work wonderfully well in the book. The trip to Amsterdam was the delight of the book, the real highlight. Making Hazel's favourite author a jerk was a masterstroke: After all, you should never meet your heroes – they'll never live up to your expectations. And because Green wasn't too worried about showing off with the author, he's the most realistic character in the book.

There's a character dies in this – no spoilers as to whom – and another character goes to their funeral. I'm pretty sure...no, I'm definitively sure...that Green never went to a funeral when he was seventeen of anyone close to him. I did. And there's no way you would act the way the character did when they were there. You don't have the mental capacity, for a start. You're certainly not going to fire off witty replies to people who post on a dead characters Facebook page.

An intriguing read, but it lost its way somewhere with an author determined to show off and not let his characters do the walking and the talking.
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Jul 14, 2013 Melissa S Frederick rated it it was amazing

Shelves: reviewed-books

Stock up on some hankeys.....

I'm going to keep this review short and sweet.
Why you may ask? Because this book speaks for itself. You must pick it up and read it!

I laughed, I cheered, I cried.......I couldn't ask for anything more.

Obviously this book is about death, cancer and teenagers, you get that just by reading the synopsis of the book, but what you don't know is how Hazel and Augustus are going to pull at your heartstrings and make you fall in love with their innocence, strength and friends ...more

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Oct 15, 2013 Tara Holman rated it it was amazing

What a great story, full of all things entertaining: love, drama, tragedy... all the great aspects that keep a reader reading. At first, I did not want to read this book as I knew of the premise being "kids with cancer" and as a mom, I did not think I could or would want to read a book on such a dark heart wrenching topic. I couldn't get away from the book though- the simple cover seemed to be catching my eye everywhere. That promotion along with the personal recommendations eventually led me to ...more

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Jan 03, 2014 Alexis Wright rated it it was amazing

I haven't read a book that has taken my breath away in a long time like this book did. This book, I knew it was going to be sad, so I prolonged reading it. And I'm kinda glad I did, but I'm kinda glad I didn't. This book was beautifully written, and I believed I obsorbed more by taking my time and I actually got to enjoy the story. This book, was brilliant and really touched my heart in a lot of ways
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Jul 29, 2013 Little Bee rated it it was amazing

:(

wonderful book. I cried. a lot.

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Jul 31, 2013 Jen rated it it was amazing

Every once in awhile you come across a book that moves you in a way you can't imagine and touches your heart so deeply you can't describe it.This book did just that for me.This is an amazing story that is now one of my favorites... ...more

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