I’m feeling sassy this afternoon. Blame it on a bout of anxiety that tipped into idontgiveashit. And in feeling like such, I’m going to post a review on The Fault in our Stars. I hated it. Most people loved it. I have many similar problems with this book that I did with All the Bright Places. (See review).

First off, the characters. Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus sdlkfaj Waters are two of the most pretentious old-but-not-really characters I’ve ever met. They are flat and speak as if they each have a Doctorate’s degree in philosophy hanging on their walls.

They are essentially the same person and they make incredibly insipid observations about he world around them. Like such:

“Why are breakfast foods breakfast foods…Like, why don’t we have curry for breakfast?”

Uhh, people do eat curry for breakfast, dumbass. You’d think with as smart as she is, she’d know a little about other cultures.

“A nonhot boy stares at you relentlessly and it is, at best, awkward and, at worst, a form of assault.
But a hot boy . . . well."

Another thing that I have a problem with is their romance. Augustus stares at her when they are in their first meeting together. STARES AT HER. That’s not cute. That’s mother-effin’ creepy! I’m not against love at first sight or anything, but COME ON. Then they take advantage of a charity and take this trip to Amsterdam to meet a piece-of-shit author and they end up kissing in the house where ANNE FRANK WAS CAPTURED. Ew. ew. ewwwwww. And everyone around them is okay with this? *keeps reading* They’re clapping?? CLAPPING?

Let us move on to the wonderful land of John Green living out his dream of being a deep-thinker through Hazel and Augustus and failing. These quotes are particularly worthy of the eye-roll.

“My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.”

“I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is improbably 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?” Wut?

Gag.

Also, this book has one giant flaw with me. One of my big red buttons you should never ever push. It’s romanticizing dying, death and the ill. They are dying. Yes. It’s sad. Yes. The characters however, were so damn annoying and shallow I did not cry at the end of this book. Nope.
Throughout this whole book, cancer and death are being treated like some magical beings that grant you the ability to love and to feel and make your life actually worth something since you have so little of it. That’s not how it is at all. People don’t suddenly feel like their life is so important or good and they certainly don’t start speaking soliloquy. Just take a look at one of our local college professors who died recently of cancer. He didn’t find any meaning to his life. He didn’t suddenly gain an appreciation for things. He was PISSED. He took no visitors, no gifts, phone calls, nothing. He died relatively alone and angry. I knew the one friend who visited him and it was really hard to do. She could see his anger.



Just because a book makes you feel all the feels doesn’t mean it’s a masterpiece. If anything, I want to cry because it was so terrible.
Don’t even get me started on that stupid cigarette thing that Augustus does. That’s got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of.