The Faults of "The Fault in Our Stars"

I’ve got a growing stack of books on our dresser. Two stacks, actually. The first is an accumulation of novels I have yet to read, amongst them several Wings of Fire books, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, and N.E. Bode’s The Slippery Map. The second stack is all the books I’ve read as of late, which are still waiting for us to put up a new bookshelf. There’s actually a third stack on Nerd #1’s side of the dresser, of the books I’ve read and she’s slowly working her way through. Basically, it's starting to look very much like The Anybodies in our room.

The majority of the books we’ve just picked up are the result of a Goodwill bookstore run we made several weeks ago. We weren’t looking for The Fault in Our Stars, but it was there, and it was cheap, and I knew it was super popular. So I thought, why not? We should probably check it out, see what all the hype was about, review it on the blog. We looked up some Catholic articles on the book, saw that it had some Christian themes.

I think I should start with the good stuff. First of all, John Green is a very good writer. His prose was poetry mixed with the harsh reality of Hazel's situation. There was loveliness, but there was pain and anger and fear as well. We've also got some nice, quotable lines. This is probably one of the most quotable books I've read in a while.

However, I cannot identify the "draw" this book has. I still don't understand the hype. I get that a lot of it has to do with opinion and personality, but there are some things in this book that are simply fact. For instance, the vast amount of language, crude comments, and the terrible life decisions these characters seem to make on a daily basis. The author does not attempt to justify these decisions, but neither does he show the negative consequences. It's as if he's condoning their actions.

For example: Hazel meets Augustus at a cancer support meeting. Augustus spouts off a couple metaphysical monologues (which don’t really make much sense, but at least they sound impressive) and tells her she looks like Natalie Portman. He is hot. She then takes a car ride with this absolute stranger and goes to his house to watch a movie—which, in my opinion, is not a smart move. I don’t know—that might just be me.

Their friend Isaac is extremely disrespectful of his girlfriend’s body--in PUBLIC. When she breaks up with him, the three friends drive to her house and egg her car in order to allow Isaac to vent his anger (vandalism, anyone?).

Augustus and Hazel sleep together while Hazel’s mom isn’t around, and it isn’t exactly vague. One minute they’re waxing poetic, the next they’re throwing out crude comments about the other’s body. And snogging in the Anne Frank House? That isn't cute and romantic. In reality, that wouldn't end with onlookers applauding--that would end with a lot of disgusted looks, because it's extremely disrespectful, inappropriate, and tremendously tacky.

I am usually all for deep intellectual conversations, but people don’t talk like these kids do on a regular basis. While Hazel may have an excuse because she is a vivacious reader, she also has minimal education. Augustus is 17-years-old, undereducated for a kid his age, and spends inordinate amounts of time playing video games. He really doesn't have an excuse for constantly speaking like an ancient poet, especially because the other half of the time he speaks like a normal teenager. Strange. Here's a sample monologue from Hazel's dad: “I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is inprobably biased toward the consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it-or my observation of it-is temporary?” Wait—what? Not to mention that this is totally out of character for him. I will not say that I regret reading The Fault in Our Stars. I will not say that I hated it. I did not enjoy it, I got nothing out of it, and I absolutely cannot see the “draw” this book has that is causing so much hype. I won't condemn it entirely, but I also will not recommend it.