From the Bookshelf of Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge…

The Fault in Our Stars

John Green

Start date: January 12, 2015

Finish date: January 15, 2015

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By Book Riot · 1 post · 5295 views

last updated Dec 16, 2014 09:22AM

Free copy of Proximity Factor this July, no reviews required. Just enjoy.
By S.S. · 1 post · 9 views

last updated Jul 18, 2024 06:08AM

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What Members Thought

Aug 07, 2013 Erin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: young-adult, book-club

First off, yes. Hazel and Augustus (and Isaac) are all wise beyond their years and their dialogue is probably not totally consistent with that of seventeen year old kids, cancer or no cancer. But this is a novel. It's meant to be entertaining, and managing to make cancer funny? John Green pulls off this and more and I see why he's considered to be the new standard for YA. This totally worked for me.

I knew I was going to love Hazel by page 5, with her observation "when they tell you that you hav First off, yes. Hazel and Augustus (and Isaac) are all wise beyond their years and their dialogue is probably not totally consistent with that of seventeen year old kids, cancer or no cancer. But this is a novel. It's meant to be entertaining, and managing to make cancer funny? John Green pulls off this and more and I see why he's considered to be the new standard for YA. This totally worked for me.

I knew I was going to love Hazel by page 5, with her observation "when they tell you that you have, say, a 20 percent chance of living five years, the math kicks in and you figure that's one in five...so you look around and think, as any healthy person would: I gotta outlast four of these bastards". So real. Then, page 7:

Me: "I refuse to attend Support Group."
Mom: "One of the symptoms of depression is disinterest in activities."
Me: "Please just let me watch America's Next Top Model. It's an activity."
Mom: "Hazel, you're a teenager. You're not a little kid anymore. You need to make friends, get out of the house, and live your life."
Me: "If you want me to be a teenager, don't send me to Support Group. Buy me a fake ID so I can go to clubs, drink vodka and take pot."
Mom: "You don't take pot, for starters."

And since I was only seven pages in at this point, I decided to stop tabbing all the great dialogue (Green reminds me a tad of writer/director Kevin Smith) and just fall into the story. Hazel is fantastic, but then we meet Isaac and Augustus. While the book focuses on the love story between Hazel and Augustus, I absolutely adored the relationship between Isaac and Augustus - this friendship between two teenage males was so lovely.

Will you guess what is going to happen? I can't imagine that an adult reader won't see a lot of the action coming, but it really doesn't matter when it's done as well as this. I believe I read somewhere that Green worked as a chaplain in a children's cancer ward and perhaps that explains how he manages to balance the tragic elements of the story (I've never been there, so I'm not a good judge).

Not a book I would have selected on my own, but I'm so very glad to have read it.

Oh, and maybe just one more quote which I marked to make sure I didn't lose it: (view spoiler) ...more

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Aug 26, 2014 Deb rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction

How to rate this book? I was strenuously avoiding reading it, because, you know, YA and the hype and everything. Then I read this article in the New Yorker about John Green, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/201..., and it piqued my interest--he was a chaplain at Children's Hospital here in Columbus, for example, besides the whole Vlog Brothers thing--so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Yes, the characters don't really talk like actual teenagers, and, really, I didn't find myself all ...more

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Jun 17, 2014 Ann rated it really liked it

Shelves: borrowed-from-library

I really liked the way the narrator used her words. The relationship between Hazel and Augustus seemed a little too easy at times, but then again relationships are a lot easier when you're young. The characters all felt real and well-developed, and I liked spending time with them. ...more

1 like · Like · see review