Scan barcode
A review by readingrobyn
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
5.0
Read an EXTENDED version of this review on my blog Reading Robyn!
Chapter Twenty-Two. The house phone was ringing. It was nine AM on the dot, but it hardly felt like a moment since I had woken up at five and begun reading. It was the ringing of the telephone that made my world catch up with me. All of a sudden my room went from a completely undisturbed silence of pages turning to the sounds of a phone ringing, and a dog moving, and a voice talking, and cars driving through the rainy street, and the squeak of the bus coming to a full stop.
I don't know what evil possessed my Aunt to call at nine in the morning, our house is not a nine AM sort of house, but regardless of her reason, after that it felt different. I was very suddenly reminded that I was reading a book. A book with an author, an author who is not in fact Hazel Grace.
John Green is a guy that I very much look up to. Before I came across him I had somehow decided that authors were not so much people as engines. They didn't so much as live lives, but existed only to create lives for my own imagination. When John Green writes he normally sounds very much like himself. His words scream, "I AM JOHN GREEN. THAT IS MY NAME. THIS IS MY STORY." Which I do enjoy, but here it didn't feel like that. You could still see him in the Venn diagrams, the quotes, the shining intelligence of teenagers, and musings on the insurmountable universe, but this was a story of the created, not the creator. All I saw was Hazel Grace.
There were so many moments that made me laugh. So many moments that made me stop and re-read what I had just read. When it ended I didn't want it to be over. I read the author's note silently wishing for more.
Back when I first got a copy (I had pre-ordered and everything) I was worried when I first realized that absolutely everyone was saying that this is a good book, a great book. I got rather frightened by the praise it was getting and then despite my concern of my own expectations I reached out to read it and it was gone. poof. gone. Somewhere in the shuffle of its trip upstairs, then downstairs, then upstairs, I had lost The Fault in Our Stars. I take losing books very seriously. It sucks. Time passed and I stop looking hoping that my not looking would result in finding it. Finally, yesterday, I found it sitting on the stairs, not knowing whether to go up or to go down. So out of love and as an apology for my abandonment, I read it and did not stop. As you can probably tell I enjoyed it. There were so many moments that I cursed my inability to dog ear the pages as quotes after quote were just too perfect to not somehow note.
I loved this book. I would not be surprised if I re-read this again before the year is over.
I'll end this with a non-spoilery quote:
"You have a choice in this world, I believe, about how to tell sad stories, and we made the funny choice" - page 209
Long live Hazel Grace.
Chapter Twenty-Two. The house phone was ringing. It was nine AM on the dot, but it hardly felt like a moment since I had woken up at five and begun reading. It was the ringing of the telephone that made my world catch up with me. All of a sudden my room went from a completely undisturbed silence of pages turning to the sounds of a phone ringing, and a dog moving, and a voice talking, and cars driving through the rainy street, and the squeak of the bus coming to a full stop.
I don't know what evil possessed my Aunt to call at nine in the morning, our house is not a nine AM sort of house, but regardless of her reason, after that it felt different. I was very suddenly reminded that I was reading a book. A book with an author, an author who is not in fact Hazel Grace.
John Green is a guy that I very much look up to. Before I came across him I had somehow decided that authors were not so much people as engines. They didn't so much as live lives, but existed only to create lives for my own imagination. When John Green writes he normally sounds very much like himself. His words scream, "I AM JOHN GREEN. THAT IS MY NAME. THIS IS MY STORY." Which I do enjoy, but here it didn't feel like that. You could still see him in the Venn diagrams, the quotes, the shining intelligence of teenagers, and musings on the insurmountable universe, but this was a story of the created, not the creator. All I saw was Hazel Grace.
There were so many moments that made me laugh. So many moments that made me stop and re-read what I had just read. When it ended I didn't want it to be over. I read the author's note silently wishing for more.
Back when I first got a copy (I had pre-ordered and everything) I was worried when I first realized that absolutely everyone was saying that this is a good book, a great book. I got rather frightened by the praise it was getting and then despite my concern of my own expectations I reached out to read it and it was gone. poof. gone. Somewhere in the shuffle of its trip upstairs, then downstairs, then upstairs, I had lost The Fault in Our Stars. I take losing books very seriously. It sucks. Time passed and I stop looking hoping that my not looking would result in finding it. Finally, yesterday, I found it sitting on the stairs, not knowing whether to go up or to go down. So out of love and as an apology for my abandonment, I read it and did not stop. As you can probably tell I enjoyed it. There were so many moments that I cursed my inability to dog ear the pages as quotes after quote were just too perfect to not somehow note.
I loved this book. I would not be surprised if I re-read this again before the year is over.
I'll end this with a non-spoilery quote:
"You have a choice in this world, I believe, about how to tell sad stories, and we made the funny choice" - page 209
Long live Hazel Grace.