The Fault in Our Stars

In writing The Fault in Our Stars, novelist John Green tells a story of young love with no sense of futurity, no belief in a happily ever after. On top of that, Green rejects the sentimental clichés that tend to structure cancer narratives, about the nobility of suffering and struggle, and the redemption that validates pain and loss. The result is a novel where love is inextricably bound up with fear, death, and merciless physical pain—but is still, somehow, worthwhile.

Hazel Lancaster, age 16, and Augustus Waters, age 17, meet and fall in love at a support group for teens with cancer. Augustus, once a rising basketball star, has lost a leg to bone cancer, and Hazel carries an oxygen tank everywhere she goes because of thyroid cancer that has spread to her lungs. The two are attracted to each other immediately; they share a bright, restless intelligence and a skeptical view of the insipid platitudes that adults use to whitewash the horrible reality of their diseases. Augustus pursues Hazel determinedly from the beginning, but she is hesitant to begin a romantic relationship, despite being deeply attracted to him. Hazel’s cancer is terminal, and she doesn’t want to allow anyone besides her parents to become attached to her, knowing that they will suffer when she dies; “I’m a grenade,” she tells her mother one day (99).