I was given this book to read by the wonderful and beautiful Kaitlyn from onadarklingplain.tumblr.com who is a big fan of John Green. With him (and her) being a Liverpool FC fan I was initially skeptical (as he clearly has poor judgement and taste when it comes to football) and this was only increased when I found out the premise of the book.
Essentially this book is about a 16-year-old girl called Hazel who is suffering/recovering from cancer and who falls in love with a fellow sufferer called Augustus Waters. Now from that brief synopsis you would expect this to be either a heart-warming tale of triumph-over-adversity by a dedicated hero who never complains etc etc OR it be a tragic story of a life cut short by cruel fate blah-blah-blah. In fact, on the face of it, this story is nothing like those things. Indeed our heroes both actively rebel against these stereotypes. At one point in the book one of them remarks that most people in the world are not self-less, non-complaining, brave people and that doesn’t change once you get cancer.
The girl Hazel though is acutely aware of her own mortality, she once compares herself to a grenade ready to explode but she is also keen to live her life in the way that she wants too. Being a cancer-sufferer does not stop her from being a teenager either. She is just as irrational, as rebellious against authority and as insecure as any teenager - she just happens to live with a life-threatening illness.
The most surprising and most rewarding thing about the book though is its humour. To make a situation like this story as funny as John Green has takes real skill and it takes real balls too. The closest thing that I can compare it too is the Roberto Bengnini film Life is Beautiful. Like that film, it is a story set in terrible circumstances, but told in a very witty and amusing way. The dialogue between the characters is very easy and well written and you never feel like any of them are really caricatures (except for perhaps Hazel’s friend Kaitlyn). At its heart, this is a love story between two teenagers trying to live in a world that has dealt them a bad hand. They go on adventures and experience loss and pain but most importantly they experience love.
I have few criticisms of this book, but there are a couple. The humour dies away a little towards the end of the story as the whole tone gets a little darker. I understand perhaps what the author was doing there, but there were a few moments where I was wondering if I’d slipped into a different story as the ‘crying’ moments started to overwhelm the ‘laughing’ moments. He also weirdly slips into play script style when writing dialogue exchanges. I’m sure there is some pretentious ‘English student’ word for this, but I thought it a little pretentious.
Overall however, I would strongly recommend this book if only because you will not believe how a story about cancer-suffering teenagers will make you laugh. It is very clever, very funny and a wonderful summer read.
9/10
Essentially this book is about a 16-year-old girl called Hazel who is suffering/recovering from cancer and who falls in love with a fellow sufferer called Augustus Waters. Now from that brief synopsis you would expect this to be either a heart-warming tale of triumph-over-adversity by a dedicated hero who never complains etc etc OR it be a tragic story of a life cut short by cruel fate blah-blah-blah. In fact, on the face of it, this story is nothing like those things. Indeed our heroes both actively rebel against these stereotypes. At one point in the book one of them remarks that most people in the world are not self-less, non-complaining, brave people and that doesn’t change once you get cancer.
The girl Hazel though is acutely aware of her own mortality, she once compares herself to a grenade ready to explode but she is also keen to live her life in the way that she wants too. Being a cancer-sufferer does not stop her from being a teenager either. She is just as irrational, as rebellious against authority and as insecure as any teenager - she just happens to live with a life-threatening illness.
The most surprising and most rewarding thing about the book though is its humour. To make a situation like this story as funny as John Green has takes real skill and it takes real balls too. The closest thing that I can compare it too is the Roberto Bengnini film Life is Beautiful. Like that film, it is a story set in terrible circumstances, but told in a very witty and amusing way. The dialogue between the characters is very easy and well written and you never feel like any of them are really caricatures (except for perhaps Hazel’s friend Kaitlyn). At its heart, this is a love story between two teenagers trying to live in a world that has dealt them a bad hand. They go on adventures and experience loss and pain but most importantly they experience love.
I have few criticisms of this book, but there are a couple. The humour dies away a little towards the end of the story as the whole tone gets a little darker. I understand perhaps what the author was doing there, but there were a few moments where I was wondering if I’d slipped into a different story as the ‘crying’ moments started to overwhelm the ‘laughing’ moments. He also weirdly slips into play script style when writing dialogue exchanges. I’m sure there is some pretentious ‘English student’ word for this, but I thought it a little pretentious.
Overall however, I would strongly recommend this book if only because you will not believe how a story about cancer-suffering teenagers will make you laugh. It is very clever, very funny and a wonderful summer read.
9/10
Favourite Quotes
- “Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you.”
- “Some people don’t understand the promises they’re making when they make them,” I said.
"Right, of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That’s what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway.”
- “What a slut time is. She screws everybody.”
- “That’s the thing about pain…it demands to be felt.”
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