One of the best books I'v ever read was The Fault In Our Stars by John
Green. It is
about a girl with cancer
who is seventeen years old. Her name is Hazel Grace. She reluctantly goes to
a
support group (which
she hates) for her mother. There, she meets a boy called Augustus Waters. He
had his leg amputated,
and is cancer free. Slowly they become friends, and then more. They share
experiences together,
like going to meet the author of Hazel’s favorite book called “An Imperial
Affliction,” watching
movies at Augustus’s house, and spending time with their other friend, Isaac.
Through the book,
Hazel struggles to deal with the effects of cancer. Hazel and Augustus were
star-
crossed lovers, best
friends, and guides to one another. However, Augustus gets cancer again, and
slowly becomes a different
person then he was before because of the cancer. Hazel doesn’t care and
tries to help him get through it, and Augustus spent his last days
together with Hazel.
I thought this book was incredible and deeply emotional. This is one of
the best books I’ve ever
read. John Green does a wonderful job of showing a very real side to illnesses,
and also a very real
side to teenagers
in general. He doesn’t sugarcoat it, and puts it bluntly. The Fault In Our
Stars shows
with teens
with cancer, but it is much more then that. It teaches us about loss. Hazel and
Augustus are
forced to
deal with losses. John Green introduces us to characters that are asking big
questions and
dealing
with big issues such as love, being forgotten after death, and cancer.
One thing I was inspired by was how Hazel fought through cancer, and
kept fighting and didn’t
give up.
On page 236, this quote shows how she is strong:
"When you go into the ER, one of the first things they ask
you to do is rate your pain on a scale of
one to ten, and from there they decide which drugs to use and
how quickly to use them. I'd been
asked this question hundreds of times over the years, and I
remember once early on when I couldn't
get my breath and it felt like my chest was on fire, flames
licking the inside of my ribs fighting for a
way to burn out of my body, my parents took me to the ER. The
nurse asked me about the pain, and I
couldn't even speak, so I held up nine fingers. Later, after
they'd given me something, the nurse came
in and she was kind of stroking my head while she took my blood
pressure and said, "You know how
I know you're a fighter? You called a ten a nine." (236
Green)
I got inspired by that because she got
through that pain, and she had to face it so many other times
in the book, even when she’s doing things that most people would
call simple, like going up the
stairs. On page 199, she describes how hard it is to climb up
the stairs.
“I began to climb the stairs, crawling up them like a little kid
would, slow at first so I could breathe,
but then faster because I knew I couldn’t breath and wanted to
get to the top before everything else
gave out. The blackness encroached around my field of vision as
I pulled myself up, eighteen steps,
steep as hell. I finally crested the staircase mostly blind and
nauseated, the muscles in my arms and
legs screaming for oxygen. I slumped seated against a wall,
heaving watered-down coughs. There
was a empty glass case bolted to the wall above me and I stared
up through it and the ceiling and tried
not to pass out.” (199 Green) To me, going up the stairs
seems easy and not hard to do at all. I
thought how hard Hazel’s life must be if something that simple
affects her so much, and me, not at
all. I learned to appreciate myself.
There are many examples of archetypes in this book. Hazel and Augustus are warriors in the
physical aspect because they deal with the effects of cancer, such as Hazel being rushed to the
hospital, and struggling to do everyday simple things that we think are simple to us, but not to them.
Augustus often has pain in his body due to his osteosarcoma coming back. Hazel's mother and father
are the mother figures, because Hazel often turns to her for guidance and she they care very deeply
for each other. I think Augustus is also the rebel and the avenger, because when Isaac was devastated
from breaking up with Monica, Augustus told him to egg Monica's car. Also, when Augustus played
video games with Isaac, he often sacrificed himself to save other peoples's lives in the video game. In
a video game, your suppose to save the people without sacrificing yourself, but Augustus did the
opposite. Patrick is a mentor, sort of like a teacher to Augustus, Isaac, and Hazel because he beat
cancer and tries to help them with it. I think that Augustus and Hazel defeated the archetype of a
typical teenager in real life, they aren't lazy or unwilling to do anything, they are the opposite.
Overall, The Fault In Our Stars by
John Green was a great book which shows the lives of cancer
patients, how they came to know each other and experience things
with eachother, and how they
became star-crossed lovers. It shows people that the world isn't
pleasant, its straight to the point and
forceful.
Works Cited:
Green, John. The Fault in Our Stars. New York: Dutton, 2012. Print.
