Reviews for The fault in our stars
Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.
*Starred Review* At 16, Hazel Grace Lancaster, a three-year stage IV-cancer survivor, is clinically depressed. To help her deal with this, her doctor sends her to a weekly support group where she meets Augustus Waters, a fellow cancer survivor, and the two fall in love. Both kids are preternaturally intelligent, and Hazel is fascinated with a novel about cancer called An Imperial Affliction. Most particularly, she longs to know what happened to its characters after an ambiguous ending. To find out, the enterprising Augustus makes it possible for them to travel to Amsterdam, where Imperial's author, an expatriate American, lives. What happens when they meet him must be left to readers to discover. Suffice it to say, it is significant. Writing about kids with cancer is an invitation to sentimentality and pathos or worse, in unskilled hands, bathos. Happily, Green is able to transcend such pitfalls in his best and most ambitious novel to date. Beautifully conceived and executed, this story artfully examines the largest possible considerations life, love, and death with sensitivity, intelligence, honesty, and integrity. In the process, Green shows his readers what it is like to live with cancer, sometimes no more than a breath or a heartbeat away from death. But it is life that Green spiritedly celebrates here, even while acknowledging its pain. In its every aspect, this novel is a triumph. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Green's promotional genius is a force of nature. After announcing he would sign all 150,000 copies of this title's first print run, it shot to the top of Amazon and Barnes & Noble's best-seller lists six months before publication.--Cart, Michael Copyright 2010 Booklist
School Library Journal
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Gr 9 Up-"It's not fair," complains 16-year-old Hazel from Indiana. "The world," says Gus, her new friend from her teen support group, "is not a wish-granting factory." Indeed, life is not fair; Hazel and Gus both have cancer, Hazel's terminal. Despite this, she has a burning obsession: to find out what happens to the characters after the end of her favorite novel. An Imperial Affliction by Dutch author Peter Van Houten is about a girl named Anna who has cancer, and it ends in mid-sentence (presumably to indicate a life cut short), a stylistic choice that Hazel appreciates but the ambiguity drives her crazy. Did the "Dutch Tulip Man" marry Anna's mom? What happened to Sisyphus the Hamster? Hazel asks her questions via email and Van Houten responds, claiming that he can only tell her the answers in person. When she was younger, Hazel used her wish-one granted to sick children from The Genie Foundation-by going to Disney World. Gus decides to use his to take Hazel to Amsterdam to meet the author. Like most things in life, the trip doesn't go exactly as anticipated. Van Houten is a disappointment, but Hazel, who has resisted loving Gus because she doesn't want to be the grenade that explodes in his life when she dies, finally allows herself to love. Once again Green offers a well-developed cast of characters capable of both reflective thought and hilarious dialogue. With his trademark humor, lovable parents, and exploration of big-time challenges, The Fault in Our Stars is an achingly beautiful story about life and loss.-Ragan O'Malley, Saint Ann's School, Brooklyn, NY (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Green's fourth solo novel is a lot of things: acerbic comedy, sexy romance, and a lightly played, extended meditation on life and death. Narrator Hazel, controlling stage four cancer, is the most multi-dimensional yet of John Green Girls. She may not be able to change the course of her stars, but she navigates their heartbreaking directives with humor, honesty, and--she'd deny it--grace. (c) Copyright 2012. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
School Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Gr 9 Up-John Green's compelling, engaging novel (Dutton, 2012) is about life, and love, and death. Hazel was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the age of 13. Three years later, she is still alive. However, her life is turned upside down when she meets Augustus Waters at a support group for teens with cancer. They embark on a relationship that has the potential to become an emotional grenade. Gus uses his "last wish" granted to sick children by the Genie Foundation to take Hazel to Amsterdam in order to meet Peter Van Houten, the author of her favorite book about a girl who has cancer. She believes there is more to the story and wants the author to give her additional information. Van Houten's response is disappointing, but in the end Hazel allows herself to love Gus. Kate Rudd narrates in a relaxed style, perfectly voicing all of Green's well-developed characters. This novel doesn't pull any punches, and listeners' emotions will run the gamut from laughing out loud to sobbing with joy or grief. A strong choice for young adult collections.-Elizabeth L. Kenyon, Merrillville High School, IN (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
An Imperial Affliction, her only friend besides her parents. He asks her over, and they swap novels. He agrees to read the Van Houten and she agrees to read his--based on his favorite bloodbath-filled video game. The two become connected at the hip, and what follows is a smartly crafted intellectual explosion of a romance. From their trip to Amsterdam to meet the reclusive Van Houten to their hilariously flirty repartee, readers will swoon on nearly every page. Green's signature style shines: His carefully structured dialogue and razor-sharp characters brim with genuine intellect, humor and desire. He takes on Big Questions that might feel heavy handed in the words of any other author: What do oblivion and living mean? Then he deftly parries them with humor: "My nostalgia is so extreme that I am capable of missing a swing my butt never actually touched." Dog-earing of pages will no doubt ensue. Green seamlessly bridges the gap between the present and the existential, and readers will need more than one box of tissues to make it through Hazel and Gus' poignant journey. (Fiction. 15 up)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
