John Green, a fantastic author, decimates souls with his tragic books. One book, The Fault in Our Stars, is about a teenage girl, Hazel, with terminal cancer, her life slowly coming ever closer to an end, who falls in love with another cancer victim, Augustus. John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, opening the floodgates of eyeballs everywhere, breaks hearts with its tragic love story.
A theme of The Fault in Our Stars is that love prevails through hardship. For example, Hazel and Augustus love each other more and more even as Augustus dies. Hazel continued to love Augustus before and even after he died. Additionally, Hazel's parents love her and each other, saying that they will endure Hazel's death together when it happens. Thus showing how their love will endure hardship. In addition, even Augustus's parents, who actually lost their child, stay together after his death. Their love endures the hardship they face when Augustus dies.
The main character, Hazel, is a very caring character. For example, she says, "There is only one thing in this world shittier than biting it from
cancer when you're sixteen, and that's having a kid who bites it from
cancer." She is more concerned about her parents feelings than about herself. The fact that she cares more about how someone else feels than whether she lives is a serious sign of selflessness. Additionally, she says, "I went to Support Group for the same reason that I'd once allowed nurses
with a mere eighteen months of graduate education to poison me with
exotically named chemicals: I wanted to make my parents happy." She puts up with stuff she doesn't like just for her parents. This once again shows that she puts others before herself. In addition, at one point in the story, Hazel tries to break up with Augustus. She does this because she doesn't want to hurt him when she dies. Even though she wants to stay with him, she wants to save him from herself.
Gender roles don't play much of a part in this story. First, Hazel's parents defy gender roles in that her dad is always the first to cry in a sad situation and her mother is shown to be emotionally stronger. Second, Hazel doesn't try so be some sort of damsel in distress or girly girl. She's just does her own thing. She's completely detached from social norms and what's considered "cool." On the other hand, Augustus fulfills the role of "Prince Charming." He's "gorgeous" and always knows just what to say.
I would recommend this book. It's pretty sad, so I normally wouldn't read one like it; however, I watch the author's videos on YouTube, so I decided to try the book out. It was well worth the time taken to read it.
