Book Twelve

The Fault in Our Stars
John Green

Warning: this is a hard book to read.  It's a good book, and it's worth it, but it's hard.  Consider yourself warned.

On the cover of my copy of The Fault in Our Stars, there is a quote from Jodi Picoult.  I feel like I could simply write that as my review, and it would have summed up the entire book: "Electric . . . Filled with staccato bursts of humor and tragedy."  Truly, nothing more needs to be said.

John Green has written a young adult novel about life and death, from the perspective of a 16-year-old girl living with terminal cancer.  She narrates her journey through a terminal life--the same life we're all living, really--and the friends she meets along the way. 

As a mother, my heart broke on nearly every other page.  I can't even imagine the thought of normal being certain you have enough oxygen tanks to get your daughter through her next journey out of the house.  Or knowing that your child will never see again.  Or knowing that there is nothing left to fight with except hope.

At the end of the day, while The Fault in Our Stars is about the crap that life gives out and recognizing that people don't die after a long battle with cancer but rather after a long battle with life, it's really a story about hope.  It's about finding love and loving, and it's about being strong enough to break down and cry, and it's about making today your best day.  It's about leaving something behind that will last.  It's about life. 

Because it isn't just this novel that is filled with "staccato bursts of humor and tragedy."  Life is too.


Memorable Quotes:
" 'Always' was a promise! How can you just break the promise?"
"Sometimes people don't understand the promises they're making when they make them," I said.
Isaac shot me a look.  "Right, of course.  But you keep the promise anyway.  That's what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway."  (p61)

"Our city has a rich history, even though many tourists are only wanting to see the Red Light District."  He paused.  "Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom.  And in freedom, most people find sin."  (p157)

"The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.  The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn't actually invent anything.  He just noticed that people with cowpox didn't get smallpox."  (p312)

"You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you.  I like my choices.  I hope she likes hers."  (p313)