The Fault in Our Stars in Our Shared Shelf

Jul 09, 2014 Kerith rated it did not like it

Shelves: bottom-shelf, book-club

My bookclub is reading this and I picked it up after everyone else, who kept saying they sobbed through it. I triple checked that I had the right book as I just made my way through it, waiting for it to pick up.

The characters and dialogue were flat and one-dimensional. I didn't find it funny or sad or anything. Just descriptive - nothing evocative of any emotion.

I don't know if they sound like teens or adults but they're not interesting. I mean Holden Caufield felt like a teenager, so I do thin My bookclub is reading this and I picked it up after everyone else, who kept saying they sobbed through it. I triple checked that I had the right book as I just made my way through it, waiting for it to pick up.

The characters and dialogue were flat and one-dimensional. I didn't find it funny or sad or anything. Just descriptive - nothing evocative of any emotion.

I don't know if they sound like teens or adults but they're not interesting. I mean Holden Caufield felt like a teenager, so I do think adults can get in the minds of adults. Even the Dawson's Creek characters felt like teens (they spoke the way teens think they sound - actually quite a great trick to get around getting into the voices of teens when your writers are intelligent adults).

I have no interest in meeting Hazel or Augustus or anyone in the book. They aren't real. I don't feel awful "they" have cancer - I feel awful for anyone facing a terminal disease at any age, and particularly a young person. But, those people weren't in this book.

Perhaps it's that I don't have children so I can't understand the pain of losing a child. But, this book was blah. I can't even get irritated or annoyed as some other reviewers did.

A couple interesting themes:

*People who die young (and at any time) want their lives to matter and to have an impact - the "historical markers" (of the 4 Aron Franks). I had not really considered this and how much pressure this puts a young person under.

*Augustus's last letter finally had some depth - you can't choose if you get hurt, but can choose who hurts you. That was good - but only a paragraph within 300 pages.

*Oddly, I perked up when I read the initial scene with Van Houten. I loved "But to be perfectly frank, this childish idea that the author of a novel has some special insight into the characters in the novel...it's ridiculous. The novel was composed of scratches on a page, dear. The characters inhabiting it have no life outside of those scratches. What happened to them? They all ceased to exist the moment the novel ended."

I felt relief when this novel ended because I was tired of these characters (whew that they only exist while the novel is open), yet books I love leave me wanting more and imagining what else happens.

I've not read anything else by John Green. He seems like a nice guy, but just not my cup of tea. ...more

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Jun 28, 2014 Sunny rated it really liked it

I was actually surprised I liked this book. I was very fearful going in that I would be very "meh" on it, even though many of my respected reading friends love it. How refreshing, then, to find Green to be such a competent writer. I really enjoyed his style and the story both. Looking for Alaska just came up in my hold list at the library and I look forward to reading more of Mr. Green. ...more

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May 16, 2014 Alien rated it liked it · review of another edition

The sentences are incredibly smart. Some notions that this book offers are amazingly witty. The book had successfully make me envy a romantic relationship of two 16yos with cancer. It got me to let out a "WHAAAA???" at the end. It gives me book-hangover. It was good. ...more

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