Semper Augustus ("The Fault in our Stars" by John Green)

John Green craze has caught on wildly recently, and all the cool kids are reading his novels. Especially with the insane attention that the TFioS movie has received globally. I honestly do like John's books, but it becomes difficult to think critically of his work with all this fog of fandom-created attention and blind praise.

To be honest, my favorite John Green book (so far) is "Paper Towns". It speaks to me on a personal level, but I also think that of all the John Green books, it is the most well rounded one, as well as "the most important" one (although I don't like thinking about books as important).

I should also mention that I am a huge John (and Hank) fan. I consider myself a part of the Nerdfighter community, and I normally do my best to spread the awesomeness of the vlogbrothers as far and wide as I can. All that said, I'll start the review. My feelings about this book are generally positive, but it does have some serious shortcomings. As always, if you disagree on anything, please feel obligated to mention it in the comments. :)

"Were she better or you sicker, then the stars would not be so terribly crossed, but it is the nature of stars to cross, and never was Shakespeare more wrong than when he had Cassius note, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves.” Easy enough to say when you’re a Roman nobleman (or Shakespeare!), but there is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars." -Peter Van Houten

The book tells the story of about one year in the life of Hazel Grace - a stage IV cancer patient, who is kept alive by an experimental (and fictional) drug for an unpredictable amount of time. For the largest part of the book, she interacts romantically with a cancer survivor (and amputee), Augustus Waters. TFioS is a cancer story. It is, but it's not a regular cancer story. It gets down and dirty with the disease on several levels - there are physical, emotional and social aspects of the sickness in all their gory details, and at times it gets really difficult to read. There is no sense of the protagonist reaching up to an angelic level of consciousness, simply based she will die sooner than she "ought to" (by our standards).

The book is extremely good at helping us come closer to complexly empathizing with people who are afflicted with difficult conditions. This is inevitable, as we spend so much time in Hazel's head, and she is so obviously just a normal teenager with her own teenage angst, and her own approach to life that is not that different solely because of the disease she is carrying along for the ride. One criticism I have heard strongly voiced is that Hazel's character is nothing without her disease. I disagree with that (there are other significant shortcomings to the book, though, and I'll get to that soon). I feel that we get to know Hazel very well, outside of her illness, and that is one of the stronger points of the book. The character of Augusts is very dear to me - the way he changes throughout the story is such a powerful depiction of "regular", life that it becomes difficult to feel pity for him without feeling pity for the rest of humanity. In particular, the "trophy bashing" and "gas station" scenes make such a beautiful portrait of his character - those were probably the two most emotional scenes to me.

So, the strongest points to this book IMHO are the way it discusses gender roles, particularly in relation to our typical idea of heroism, and reminding us not to look at people afflicted with difficult diseases as "other" than ourselves. One thing I can't talk from personal experience, but is definitely important is that actual cancer patients all over the world (as well as their families) love this book, and it helps them feel more natural around their loved ones, and it is such an awesome resource for their friends. There are multiple accounts of this around the world, and it's such a beautiful feat for a piece of literature to achieve.

As for the shortcomings, in my personal view:

• Characters other than Hazel and Gus are extremely flat and uninteresting. Hazel's mother is the borderline case, but it's still such a huge sin to leave things as is. Especially since there are such intriguing characters as Isaac and Peter Van Houten. More depth to some of the other characters would have made for a much more enjoyable read imho.
• The story line is somewhat forced in certain moments. In particular, the complete Chapter VIII (Hazel's pre-Amsterdam sickness) and the Anne Frank scene feel too unnatural.
• The dialogue gets too pompous too many times. You've got teenagers spontaneously creating paragraph-long sentences with multiple layers of meaning. Teenagers don't talk like that, though they'd definitely like to.
• The book fails to tackle fruit.

So those are my few cents. If you haven't, I suggest you read TFioS. In all probability, it's going to be a bouncy emotional ride and will provide some nice insights into the reality that is cancer.