The Fault in Our Stars in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

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The Fault in Our Stars

John Green

Start date: January 11, 2015

Finish date: January 13, 2015

Discussion: 2015 Challenge Prompts

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2015 Challenge Prompts

Prompt 25: A book you were supposed to read in school but didn't
By Ann · 67 posts · 992 views

last updated Jan 17, 2023 03:51PM

Prompt 39: A book with magic
By Ann · 48 posts · 446 views

last updated Jan 02, 2019 05:46AM

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What Members Thought

Feb 11, 2013 Hannah added it

Shelves: ya, for-class-masters

This book is not real. These are not real people. Hazel is marginally more developed than Alaska. But regardless of her character, she is in a lifeboat, essentially narrating from the afterlife as she is (view spoiler)

Seriously though, this bo This book is not real. These are not real people. Hazel is marginally more developed than Alaska. But regardless of her character, she is in a lifeboat, essentially narrating from the afterlife as she is (view spoiler)

Seriously though, this book is what happens when Going Bovine, Life of Pi, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, and Pale Fire have an orgy and then have magical biology that makes one book baby come out of it. I do not hold any of those books in a particularly special, exclusive VIP lounge of my heart.

This is not as amazing as everyone is making it out to be. It is no less problematic than Looking for Alaska or, I imagine, his other books. It is not horrible. I read it in about two and a half hours (I had to, because it was homework, but still), so clearly I was engaged. But please. It is Life of Pi, just with a setting that makes itself out to be more real life-y, which makes it a really interesting choice to assign it for a realism class, and I'm said we didn't get to talk about the ridiculously meta and ridiculously self aggrandizing author's note about Fiction with a capital F. That note is my favorite part of the book because it is the most fascinating.

Anyway. I have a heart of stone and only cry when Shonda Rhimes tells me to, so I did not tear up in this book. Maybe if I had been reading it more slowly? Who knows. That said, I really don't think it is all that literary or ruminate-y when it comes to death and cancer. What is compelling about this book is the way the characters talk/narrate, because it is so absurdly snarky and hipster and witty and perfect, so you're like, "Oh, that's how I wanted to talk when I was 16, except that I was 16, so I wasn't cool/smart enough to do so" or "Damn, those are the friends I never had in high school - or college. They will be my book friends now!" And I find this construct of witty teens in YA to be completely fascinating, since it's a thing to aspire to and in fact not real at all; it's just a strange sort of verisimilitude, because verisimilitude and realism are not the same as reality. No real people are like Hazel or Augustus, and if they are, they aren't, because you can't actually interact like that in the real world. So well done there, John Green. You wrote characters like some other people write characters that are awesome because I'm jealous that I'm not more like them.

But this book as a whole? Thoroughly meh, sorry.

I will concede that I approached this book with a hipster mindset, meaning that I specifically did not want to obsess over it because that is what EVERYONE is doing and it is obnoxious. So maybe I would think a little differently if it were just a book. But it's not, and what bothers me as much as the over-lauding of this book (it deserves praise, just not the excessive praise it has been getting) is the authorliness of John Green, the signing of the entire first print run, the #tfios hashtag, and the entire thing that is this book, because it's not just this book, it's THIS BOOK. Does that make sense? ...more

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Jan 18, 2012 Christina, Join Me on Storygraph! rated it really liked it

Shelves: books-i-recommend, 2012

I'm having a hard time figuring out what I really liked about this book; it's kind of a slice of life book that doesn't usually fall into the category of books I love. With that said, I loved the characters in this book. I loved Hazel, even, sort of, during her more obnoxious typical teen moments, I loved Hazel's mom (definitely signifying the change in my life stage by my bawling at sad parts for Hazel's mom more than sad parts for Hazel), I loved Augustus.

I particularly love this coming-of-age ...more

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