The Fault in Our Stars

First book review!  Promised I'd do these as well as movies, so here's my review of John Green's book, The Fault in Our Stars!

TFiOS is a YA novel about kids falling in love and trying to deal with life.  They also have cancer, so there's that.  The story follows narrator Hazel Grace Lancaster, a 16 year old with Thyroid cancer that has metastasized to her lungs forcing her to be connected to an oxygen tank at all times.  Her chances of living much longer are incredibly narrow, and she had already avoided one very close brush with death years before, so that's something you're going to cry about.  She meets a guy named Augustus Waters in a cancer support group, and after some fumbles they form a deep connection.  Gus lost his leg to Osteosarcoma, but his cancer appears to be in remission.

I don't want to spoil any more of the story, I'll just say you're going to cry a lot.  I am an emotionless shell of a human and still felt some weird eye sweat forming every couple pages.

Particularly heart wrenching moments always seem to happen when the parents are involved.  I'm not a parent (though I do have a wonderful little niece), so I can't even imagine what parents go through in those situations.  The book isn't all sad the whole time, there's plenty of smart humor from intelligent characters and feel good moments.

"So Brian," you say.  "You are both a male and in your 20's, why are you reading this book?"  Well I'll tell you.  The author is John Green, one half of the Vlog Brothers channel on Youtube.  He also founded the free educational youtube channel Crash Course where he teaches history, literature, and more.  Pretty awesome. This may also be the first story that I'll end up reviewing twice, as just recently it was announced that TFiOS was picked up to be made into a movie, and just the other day they announced Shailene Woodley was cast as the lead.  And to add to all that cool news, just last night John Green was on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

The Fault in Our Stars is a fantastic book by a great author and just plain great guy which will make you sad and happy and all other sorts of emotions.  I greatly enjoyed the ride.