Books on the Bay

Publisher's Description:

Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 13, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs... for now. 

Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault. 

Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind

My Review:

I really shouldn't write a review right now, right after I've finished the book and while I still have tears in my eyes. But I really want to. A book hasn't made me cry since the end of Harry Potter. I don't even know where to start with this one. When I first picked it up I had heard so many good things about it that I thought for sure it couldn't live up to the hype. I didn't want to like the book, I was fairly sure I would hate it. Surprise: I'm not a fan of Perks, and I really expected this to be Perks 2.0... but it wasn't. I loved it.

The characters are wonderful. They're developed and strange and real and flawed. The plot is so strange, parts of it are so surreal and parts of are it so trivially "cancer plot points" that it makes you stop and think, maybe this is what it's like. Maybe this is what Hazel and Augustus are dealing with. Some things stay so unapologetically normal and trite and predictable, while some things are wild and out of control and the strangest part is how they all come together without your permission.

John Green does an excellent job of keeping the teenagers teenagers, and the parents parents, the doctors doctors and the strage recluse the strange recluse. His language is powerful but accessible, sometimes quirky. I was often uncomfortable with his word choices (or maybe, Augustus's word choices) but that was part of what gave the book life. The Fault in Our Stars is not what you want it to be. It's not perfect, it is it's own story. But it is wonderful and I am very, very glad I read it.