I hope you all are happy that I put that up, because I had to rewatch it when I looked for it and now I'm nearly crying because it's so good and I HOPE THAT YOU APPRECIATE ALL THAT I DO FOR YOU.
Anyway, I thought that since there is a new popularity with the book because of the trailer, I would tell you what I think about it.
(also because I promised back in my Vlogbrothers post that I would do a TFiOS post).
Also, I'm doing 99.999% of this from memory, so please cut me some slack if I get details wrong.
Also, I'm doing 99.999% of this from memory, so please cut me some slack if I get details wrong.
The Story:
This is gonna be spoilerific, so watch out.
Also, if you haven't read it yet, skip to the characters section, which is relatively spoiler free.
Also, if you haven't read it yet, skip to the characters section, which is relatively spoiler free.
The book starts out with Hazel Lancaster begrudgingly leaving her America's Next Top Model marathon to go to a support group meeting for kids with cancer. Hazel unfortunately has cancer in her lungs, and has been terminal for the past three years. A drug called Philanxifor is the main thing keeping her alive.
Anyway, at the meeting, she meets a boy named Augustus Waters, who is there to support their friend Isaac who has cancer in his eyes. Gus can also be part of the group because he lost his leg to cancer a few years before the story starts, but he's mostly there for Isaac. After the meeting, Gus tells Hazel that she looks like mid-2000s Natalie Portman, and invites her to come over and watch V for Vendetta.
This sparks a friendship/romance that heavily incorporates a book called An Imperial Affliction. It's Hazel's favorite book, because it's about a girl with cancer and it's very truthful about the whole ordeal, even ending mid-sentence to show the suddenness of death. She gets Gus to read the book, which is an important thing.
A few weeks later, he takes her out to the park with a bunch of cheesy orange stuff and says that it's all for a gift for Hazel. Turns out that while Gus had cancer, he got a 'wish' from The Genies that he never spent. Btw, The Genies are pretty much Make-a-Wish. Anyway, he's apparently still eligible to spend it, and he decided to spend it on a trip for him and Hazel to go Amsterdam to meet Peter Van Houten, the author of An Imperial Affliction.
Then Hazel has a big problem with her lungs, as they are filling with brown 'cancer water'. She's admitted to the hospital, but gets to go home within a week. This brings up the issue of Hazel being healthy enough to go to Amsterdam. She's cleared, so they get to go on the trip!
So Hazel, her mom, and Augustus go to Amsterdam, and it's really great because Hazel and Augustus get to go to a fancy restaurant and eat artichoke and taste the stars (drink champagne), and it's really REALLY adorable.
The next day, the go to meet Peter Van Houten who ends up being the biggest douchebag to ever douchebag. He goes on and on about how cancer kids are parasites of society and drinks scotch at 10 in the morning and blasts Swedish rap and it's terrible. Afterwards, as an apology, Houten's assistant takes them to the Anne Frank house, where it's very hard for Hazel to get around because there are lots of stairs, and after all that talk about stair climbing her and Augustus kiss at the top which is great and beautiful.
After the trip, we find out the Gus's cancer has come back, and it's ALL OVER HIS BODY. He slowly becomes weaker and weaker and dies a few months later.
After the funeral, Hazel sees Van Houten again who came for the funeral, who is a douchebag yet again, and gives her a letter from Gus about how he loves her, and wants her to be happy. It's very beautiful and we all cry and thank god the book ends there because I couldn't take anymore of that.
Major Characters:
((this is as of the beginning so everyone who hasn't read the book can read this part))
Hazel Grace Lancaster: A sixteen year old girl with stage 3 thyroid cancer and mets in her lungs. She obsessively reads An Imperial Affliction, enjoys René Magritte's irony, and has a page-boy haircut. She also has very much accepted the fact that she's terminal, and is desperate to hurt as few people as possible with her death, so she tries not to make too many friends.
Augustus Waters: A seventeen year old boy who lost his leg to osteosarcoma, and has a prosthetic leg (which I think would be fun as heck (at times) cus you could freak out everyone by taking it off and screaming 'OH MY FRICKING GOD GUYS! MY LEG JUST CAME OFF! HOLY SHIT!!" ((am I a terrible person for thinking that?)). Before that, he was a star basketball player, and was actually pretty popular. He likes The Hectic Glow and The Price of Dawn (the book and videogame).
Isaac ((who I don't think has a last name for some reason o_o)): He's a friend of Hazel and Gus who had cancer in his eye, and had to get it removed. Unfortunately, the cancer is back in his other eye, SO GUESS WHO'S GONNA BE BLIND! In the book ((because I didn't mention Isaac enough in the plot section)), he had this girlfriend named Monica. She was a total bitch because she dumped him when she heard that he was gonna be blind, and there was a great scene where Isaac goes on a heartbroken rampage and breaks a bunch of stuff in Gus's room and it's beautiful. He gets revenge later in the book by egging her Thunderbird. He's sort of the rock through the whole book, cus he knows what Hazel and Gus are going through (cancer wise). He's also the way that they meet, so that's good.
Peter Van Houten: The dickwad author of An Imperial Affliction. He's an American that moved to Amsterdam so he didn't have to deal with Americans. Or at least that's what he says at first. Actually, he had a daughter who died of cancer and he needed to get away from that. On the bright side, it inspired An Imperial Affliction..........ya.
Then Hazel has a big problem with her lungs, as they are filling with brown 'cancer water'. She's admitted to the hospital, but gets to go home within a week. This brings up the issue of Hazel being healthy enough to go to Amsterdam. She's cleared, so they get to go on the trip!
So Hazel, her mom, and Augustus go to Amsterdam, and it's really great because Hazel and Augustus get to go to a fancy restaurant and eat artichoke and taste the stars (drink champagne), and it's really REALLY adorable.
The next day, the go to meet Peter Van Houten who ends up being the biggest douchebag to ever douchebag. He goes on and on about how cancer kids are parasites of society and drinks scotch at 10 in the morning and blasts Swedish rap and it's terrible. Afterwards, as an apology, Houten's assistant takes them to the Anne Frank house, where it's very hard for Hazel to get around because there are lots of stairs, and after all that talk about stair climbing her and Augustus kiss at the top which is great and beautiful.
After the trip, we find out the Gus's cancer has come back, and it's ALL OVER HIS BODY. He slowly becomes weaker and weaker and dies a few months later.
After the funeral, Hazel sees Van Houten again who came for the funeral, who is a douchebag yet again, and gives her a letter from Gus about how he loves her, and wants her to be happy. It's very beautiful and we all cry and thank god the book ends there because I couldn't take anymore of that.
Major Characters:
((this is as of the beginning so everyone who hasn't read the book can read this part))
Hazel Grace Lancaster: A sixteen year old girl with stage 3 thyroid cancer and mets in her lungs. She obsessively reads An Imperial Affliction, enjoys René Magritte's irony, and has a page-boy haircut. She also has very much accepted the fact that she's terminal, and is desperate to hurt as few people as possible with her death, so she tries not to make too many friends.
Augustus Waters: A seventeen year old boy who lost his leg to osteosarcoma, and has a prosthetic leg (which I think would be fun as heck (at times) cus you could freak out everyone by taking it off and screaming 'OH MY FRICKING GOD GUYS! MY LEG JUST CAME OFF! HOLY SHIT!!" ((am I a terrible person for thinking that?)). Before that, he was a star basketball player, and was actually pretty popular. He likes The Hectic Glow and The Price of Dawn (the book and videogame).
Isaac ((who I don't think has a last name for some reason o_o)): He's a friend of Hazel and Gus who had cancer in his eye, and had to get it removed. Unfortunately, the cancer is back in his other eye, SO GUESS WHO'S GONNA BE BLIND! In the book ((because I didn't mention Isaac enough in the plot section)), he had this girlfriend named Monica. She was a total bitch because she dumped him when she heard that he was gonna be blind, and there was a great scene where Isaac goes on a heartbroken rampage and breaks a bunch of stuff in Gus's room and it's beautiful. He gets revenge later in the book by egging her Thunderbird. He's sort of the rock through the whole book, cus he knows what Hazel and Gus are going through (cancer wise). He's also the way that they meet, so that's good.
Peter Van Houten: The dickwad author of An Imperial Affliction. He's an American that moved to Amsterdam so he didn't have to deal with Americans. Or at least that's what he says at first. Actually, he had a daughter who died of cancer and he needed to get away from that. On the bright side, it inspired An Imperial Affliction..........ya.
Hazel's Parents: Mr. and Mrs. Lancaster are pretty freaking great, because they handle having a kid with cancer amazingly. They try to get Hazel to live her life while she can, and supports everything she does, and everything she chooses not to do.
(Some) Favorite Quotes:
((you can't talk about a book by John Green without having a section like this)).
"Okay, so I went into clinic this morning, and I was telling my surgeon that i'd rather be deaf than blind. And he said, 'it doesn't work that way,' and I was, like, 'Yeah, I realize that it doesn't work that way; I'm just saying I'd rather be deaf than blind if I had the choice, which I realize I don't have,' and he said, 'Well, the good news is that you won't be deaf,' and I was like, 'Thank you for explaining to me that my eye cancer isn't going to make me deaf. I feel so fortunate that an intellectual giant like yourself would deign to operate on me.'" (Green, 15).
"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." (Green, 20).
"Hazel Grace, you are the only teenager in America who prefers reading poetry to writing it. This tells me so much." (Green, 33).
"Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeald, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. Then there are books like An Imperial Affliction, which you can't tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like betrayal." (Green, 33).
"Kissing someone so that you can get a free trip is perilously close to full-on hooking, and I have to confess that while I did not fancy myself a particularly good person, I never thought my first real sexual action would be prostitutional." (Green, 93).
"Oh, I wouldn't mind Hazel grace. It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you." (Green, 176).
"You say you're not special because the world doesn't know about you, but that's an insult to me. I know about you." (Green, 240).
"When the scientists of the future show up at my house with robot eyes and they tell me to try them on, I will tell the scientists to screw off, because I do not want to see a world without [Augustus Waters]." (Green, 258).
"The marks humans leave are too often scars." (Green, 311).
"People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad, Van Houten. It's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm." (Green, 312)
I literally found all those quotes just by flipping through the book. You can't go one page without finding something ridiculously funny, or heart-wrenchingly deep.
Reaction:
I'm gonna make this short because I'm getting really emotional now since I had to go through the book to get those quotes.
I know a lot of you are thinking she's getting a little too emotional over this. I know that I do overreact over this book, but it's extremely important to me.
In a strange way, The Fault in Our Stars is MY An Imperial Affliction. It fills me with the evangelical zeal of wanting the world to read it, but also to keep it as my own.
I've read this book over and over again. The first time, I read until three in the morning, and cried the whole time. The second time was on my first night in Guatemala over the summer, and I was feeling extremely homesick and flipping out because I was in a strange country. The third was at the end of that summer, a day or two before my first day of high school.
I haven't known about his book for long, but it's affected me in ways that I never thought I could be affected. It's shown love, and loss, sacrifice, compassion, forgiveness, the unfairness of life, and so much more.
Frick that got dramatic at the end.
Since this was mostly from memory, feel free to correct me on stuff in the comments, and I can add more stuff if you feel like I forgot something.
Also, if you're interested in hearing the first chapter of the book, read by the AUTHOR to you, click here to enjoy.
I think I need to stop now. Okay?
Okay.
(Some) Favorite Quotes:
((you can't talk about a book by John Green without having a section like this)).
 |
| From: http://www.pallimed.org/2013/05/the-fault-in-ours- stars-tfios.html |
"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." (Green, 20).
"Hazel Grace, you are the only teenager in America who prefers reading poetry to writing it. This tells me so much." (Green, 33).
"Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeald, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. Then there are books like An Imperial Affliction, which you can't tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like betrayal." (Green, 33).
"Kissing someone so that you can get a free trip is perilously close to full-on hooking, and I have to confess that while I did not fancy myself a particularly good person, I never thought my first real sexual action would be prostitutional." (Green, 93).
"Oh, I wouldn't mind Hazel grace. It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you." (Green, 176).
"You say you're not special because the world doesn't know about you, but that's an insult to me. I know about you." (Green, 240).
"When the scientists of the future show up at my house with robot eyes and they tell me to try them on, I will tell the scientists to screw off, because I do not want to see a world without [Augustus Waters]." (Green, 258).
"The marks humans leave are too often scars." (Green, 311).
"People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad, Van Houten. It's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm." (Green, 312)
I literally found all those quotes just by flipping through the book. You can't go one page without finding something ridiculously funny, or heart-wrenchingly deep.
Reaction:
I'm gonna make this short because I'm getting really emotional now since I had to go through the book to get those quotes.
I know a lot of you are thinking she's getting a little too emotional over this. I know that I do overreact over this book, but it's extremely important to me.
In a strange way, The Fault in Our Stars is MY An Imperial Affliction. It fills me with the evangelical zeal of wanting the world to read it, but also to keep it as my own.
I've read this book over and over again. The first time, I read until three in the morning, and cried the whole time. The second time was on my first night in Guatemala over the summer, and I was feeling extremely homesick and flipping out because I was in a strange country. The third was at the end of that summer, a day or two before my first day of high school.
I haven't known about his book for long, but it's affected me in ways that I never thought I could be affected. It's shown love, and loss, sacrifice, compassion, forgiveness, the unfairness of life, and so much more.
Frick that got dramatic at the end.
Since this was mostly from memory, feel free to correct me on stuff in the comments, and I can add more stuff if you feel like I forgot something.
Also, if you're interested in hearing the first chapter of the book, read by the AUTHOR to you, click here to enjoy.
I think I need to stop now. Okay?
Okay.
