Dear reader, if you have not
read the book, do skip this
review, grab it off the shelves of
your nearest bookstore, brew
yourself a nice cup of tea and
settle in with a box of tissuesjust in case.
Just a side note, this review will
stay as spoiler-free as possible
but I cannot promise anything
so long as fingers can type and
brains can think.
Lets start of with Hazel Grace
Lancaster, 16 and suffering
from thyroid cancer and lungs
that can only work with the help
of an oxygen tank because, to
quote ‘my lungs sucked at
being
lungs’.
That
one
sentence itself is powerful
enough, I think, to paint a
general picture of this novel
that this is not your typical high
school musical romance with
an ending that is too happy or
fairytale like with musical
numbers
that
you
can
download on your iPod. It is
about illness, reality, love,
heartbreak and the circle of life
that screams “Hey, I will tear
any one of you away from your
loved ones at any time, so you
have a good day now ya hear!”
However, this is not a book
about cancer or the life story of
cancer survivor. It is about a
girl who watches America’s
Next
Top
Model,
who
appreciates authorship and
literature, who is trying her darn
best to navigate the realities of
her life in ways that are both
disheartening
and
extraordinary. There is none of
The faultiness of the fault in our stars
By Aric Ting
the wisdom, the acceptance of
death, the talk of heroic fights with
cancer or the ‘live your life to
the fullest’ mantra despite
having tubes in your nose that
leads to an oxygen tank that
you need to lug around (try
parachuting with that and one
will begin to understand the
futility). And that is the beauty
of the book, nothing is sugar
coated, every sentence is
meant to strike the nerves with
full force. Everything feels real.
Then there is Augustus Waters.
Oh, dear, dear Augustus.
Here is a boy who could
single handedly revive the
use of metaphors in daily
conversations.
"It’s a metaphor, see: You
put the killing thing right
between your teeth, but
you don’t give it the power
to do its killing.” Wow, find
another 17 year old boy
that talks like that and
salmon will fly.
A guy who is afraid of
oblivion
and
has
a
tendency to be overly
zealous with the art of
sacrifice and leaving his
mark upon the earth,
always to be remembered.
Blessed with good looks
and a personality that could
charm the pants off anyone a
million times over, you would
think that he is just another typical
‘jock’ of the literary world and you
might be right. But he is in many
"It’s a metaphor,
see: You put the
killing thing right
between
your
teeth, but you
don’t give it the
power to do its
killing.”
Starry night; “…this novel that this is not
your typical high school musical
romance with an ending that is too happy
or fairytale like with musical numbers
that you can download on your iPod.”