The fault in our stars by John Green is a love story about a cancer patient and her fellow cancer-suffering boyfriend. I'm not particularly into these romance or love genre but since a friend (thanks @zarinashmsdn) presented the book to me, I felt obliged to finish it.
What do you expect from a book about cancer patients? Misery and more misery? The book centers around Hazel Grace who falls in love with a fellow cancer patient in a support group meeting. From a harmless friendship, their relationship developed into full-bloomed romance as they travel to Amsterdam to meet the author of her favorite book (An imperial affliction). You see, Hazel has always dreamt of finding out the ending to her favorite book but had no idea how to correspond with the author. So when Augustus, her newfound boyfriend found out about it, he was thoughtful enough to use his wish from a charitable foundation that grants the wishes of kids with cancer and travel together to Holland to meet the author.
While most of the book's location revolves around Indiana, much of the romantic period happened in Amsterdam including they first time they had sex (YOLO and so why not). Their meeting with the author which turned out to be a real douche-bag was far from fruitful since he refused to disclose what really happened to the characters in the book. In spite of that, I suppose the entire trip was a success since Hazel and Augustus found each other and true love and so on.
Back home, Augustus suffered a relapse of tumour and they realised he has only a couple of month to live. That's where the story becomes predictable as in the boyfriend dies eventually but the girl lives on on her own until God knows when. If the author had written that the couple survived cancer and lived happily ever after it would be very cliché indeed. On the other hand, if one of them or both died, than that would be quite predictable so he's got not much choice there.
I have nothing against cancer patients but I guess I have pretty much desensitised myself from countless of success story or unhappy endings to be interested in such genre or theme in books or movies for that matter. The fault in our stars is a mediocre effort to put it mildly despite it's best-selling status. To be honest, life is hard (relatively) as it is to me or many people so why should I wallow myself in other people's sorrow? I'd rather read books about happy subjects or sci-fi or biographies or something. But that's just me.
Anyway this book is about to have it's silver screen debut this summer so while you wait for the release you can read this book in the mean time. Who knows you might actually enjoy it. Check out the movie trailer below.
Verdict: ★★
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