Fault in Our Stars By: Aruzhan

Introduction Have you ever read any of “cancer love stories”? I did and now I’d like to share one of them with you. “The Fault in Our Stars”, written by an amazing author, John Green, is one of the New York Times bestsellers.

Setting The story happens in Indiana. Hazel’s 12’s year of cancer surgeries. Also in the middle of the story Hazel and Gus travel to Amsterdam for 3 days, to meet their favorite author, and their first kiss happens also in Amsterdam. The year seems to be nowadays, because of the modern technology they used. Texting online, receiving emails is also mentioned there. For example: “I spent the next two hours writing to Peter Van Houten. It seemed to get worse each time I rewrote it, But I couldn't stop myself.” That already tells me that Hazel has a computer, from which she is able to write an email to anyone. Nowadays we have a great opportunity to just sit and write and don’t go anywhere to send an email.

As for the main character I will go with Hazel Grace, because she is the one who is telling the story from her point of view. Hazel calls herself “unextraordinary” person, but this is not the case. She is just a 16 year old cancer teenage girl who is being unsocial. Her mother thinks that she’s quite depressive, and I would say so too. She stays home for the most of the time, reads a cancer book over thousands of times, and she is just not socializing. Obviously, when it comes to cancer, you don’t feel anything but pain. “Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of cancer. But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying.” This quote tells me that Hazel is quite depressed person and doesn’t know how to accept life yet. Characters

Plot 1 So, basically Hazel counts herself as a “unextraordinary” teenager that suffers with lung cancer. Hazel was quite shy and didn’t have any friends until her mom sent her to the support group, where she met a gorgeous Augustus Waters who had “a little touch of osteosarcoma”, from which he lost his leg. So, Hazel decided to share one of her favorite book with Gus (“In Imperial Affliction”) and Gus shared A Price of Dawn with Hazel. After both of them finished reading a book they began discussing it and started to share thoughts and ideas.

Plot 2 Hazel is just in love with An Imperial Affliction, so what Gus did is he wrote an email to Van Houten (the author) . So, Van Houten invited them to Amsterdam to discuss how this book continues. Hazel actually hijacks Gus’s wish to go to the Amsterdam, where they both had a delicious dinner, had their first kiss and got rejected by an author.

Plot 3 On the last day of their trip, Gus needed to tell the truth to Hazel, that he is now made out of cancer. Obviously, Hazel is splitting tears and saying that life is unfair. And when they came back home Gus decided to run prefuneral and hear Hazel’s speech. Augustus dies after the prefuneral.

Character Change Hazel Grace went through hard stuff. Her lungs were not breathing most of the time, so they had to remove a tube, Van Houten (her favorite writer) was inhospitable to cancer-sick kids, and her parents, they just forced her to go to the support group. But as a result Hazel got a gorgeous boyfriend/good friend. I think, if not Augustus, Hazel wouldn’t be as happy as she deserved to be. Hazel changed because of Gus. Gus shared his favorite book “The Price of Dawn” with Hazel, Hazel gave him “An Imperial Affliction”. She became more social, started reading a new book, and even shared it in some of the paragraphs: “(Spoiler alert: The price of dawn is blood.) It wasn’t An Imperial Affliction, but the protagonist, Staff Sergeant Max Mayhem, was vaguely likable despite killing, by my count, no fewer than 118 individuals in 284 pages.” Anyway, her life really did change because of Augustus, and she’s really thankful to him.

Examine the Dialogue Another important character in this story is Hazel’s boyfriend, Augustus Waters, AKA Gus. Gus is a talkative and social person, who is opposite from Hazel. But they have a lot in common to talk about, for example: books. Gus-”Hazel Grace” “So have you read it?” Hazel-”Well, I haven’t finished it. It’s six hundred fifty-one pages long and I’ve had twenty-four hours.” Gus-”How far are you?” Hazel-”Four fifty-three.” Gus-”And?” Hazel-”I will withhold judgment until I finish. However, I will say that I’m feeling a bit embarrassed to have given you The Price of Dawn” Now, let me explain what is going on. Basically, Hazel and Gus both swapped their favorite books to have something in common to discuss.This dialogue between two characters helps me to understand, that Agustus Waters is the type of character who gets used to people fast. Besides Hazel, she is the type of character who can trust people by giving them their phone number and trusting them to read a book of her choice.

Theme A theme that I would like to choose from this book is “friends can change your life”. Before Hazel met Gus, she hated going to the support group, she sat at home most of the time and thought that life was nothing, reread the same book one billion times, was depressed. Until one very day she met Gus, whom she started exchanging books with,and because of him Hazel met her favorite author (soon she realized that he was an alcoholic, but at least she got to see Amsterdam.) And afterwards, when Gus was made out of cancer, he decided to run the prefuneral. Hazel’s quote says: "My name is Hazel. Augustus Waters was the great star-crossed love of of my life. Ours was an epic love story, and I won't be able to get more than a sentence into it without disappearing into a puddle of tears. Gus knew. Gus knows. I will not tell you our love story, because like all real love stories, it will die with us. As it should. I'd hoped that he'd be eulogizing me, because there is no one I'd rather have……... But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You have me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful." This quote helped me to understand on how much Hazel is thankful with all her love to Augustus for this huge “infinity” that made her number of certain days last forever in her memory. And it really showed me that Gus changed her life, and now she knows how to accept life.

Conclusion To be honest, I had a lot of fun reading “The Fault in Our Stars” and at the same time felt quite sad, because Gus died “(spoiler alert)”. However what I didn’t really like in this book is how Van Houten himself acted unpleasantly and insultingly to Hazel and Gus. From all of the young adult books I’ve read, I know that most of them include some bad and inappropriate words, and I’m totally fine with it, but sometimes when I read them, they may sound too funny to me and I get distracted not knowing what part I was reading. Anyway, if you are young adult book lover or just love reading some heartbreaking cancer stories, this book is good for you. Thank you for your attention and have a nice day.

Work cited http://www.iamthecoffeechic.com/2014/06/the-fault-in-our-stars-movie-quotes.html http://www.teen.com/2016/09/21/entertainment/books-entertainment/john-green-may-not-write-another-book-after-fault-in- our-stars/ http://www.gunnaresiason.com/cystic-fibrosis-fault-stars/ https://www.buzzfeed.com/ariellecalderon/things-we-learned-about-tfios-from-john- green?utm_term=.exbapNJBy#.jidXQvDyw http://www.polyvore.com/fault_in_our_stars/collection?id=3312928 https://www.emaze.com/@AOORFOQZ/THE-FAULT-IN-OUR-STARS