The Fault in Our Stars: Difference between revisions

The Fault in Our Stars (Best book ever)

Author	John Green
Cover artist	Rodrigo Corral
Language	English
Genre	Young adult novel
Publisher	Dutton Books
Publication date	January 10, 2012
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (hardcover, paperback)
Pages	313
ISBN	0-525-47881-7

The Fault in Our Stars is the fourth solo novel by author John Green, published in January 2012. The story is narrated by a sixteen-year-old cancer patient named Hazel, who is forced by her parents to attend a support group, where she subsequently meets and falls in love with the seventeen-year-old Augustus Waters, an ex-basketball player and amputee.

On his Tumblr blog and his YouTube vlog, Green stated that "the title is inspired by a famous line from Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar (Act 1, scene 2). The nobleman Cassius says to Brutus, 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.'"

On February 1, 2012, the film rights to the book were optioned by Fox 2000.

Synopsis

Sixteen year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster is forced by her parents to attend a support group for children living with cancer. Hazel was diagnosed with Stage 4 Thyroid cancer when she was 13 (three months after her first period). At support group she meets Augustus "Gus" Waters, a former basketball star who lost his right leg to osteosarcoma, and upon her first words to him he clearly becomes infatuated. Hazel convinces Augustus to read 'An Imperial Affliction', her favorite book, and he becomes almost as obsessed with it as she is. Beginning on their first meeting, they both begin their freeing journey to loving each other and themselves.

After Hazel is admitted to, and later discharged from the hospital with serious pneumonia, her relationship with Gus deepens. Gus had saved his wish from "The Genies" (a fictionalized version of the Make a Wish Foundation), and decides to use it to fly himself and Hazel to Amsterdam in the Netherlands to meet Peter van Houten, the reclusive author of 'An Imperial Affliction'.

On their first night in Amsterdam, they are treated to an elaborate meal, courtesy of van Houten. Their meeting with the author goes less smoothly, as it emerges that Lidewij, his assistant, set it up without his full knowledge in the hopes that it would inspire him to give up alcohol and write again. Van Houten is scornful and rude to the teens, and refuses to answer their questions. Distraught by their reception, Hazel and Augustus leave van Houten's house, accompanied by a disgusted Lidewij. She takes them to the Anne Frank house, where they finally have their long-awaited first kiss, and later sleep together.

Afterwards, Augustus reveals that his cancer has returned and has metastasized to several other parts of his body. Even though he starts an aggressive treatment regime when he returns home, he is not expected to survive long. Shortly before he dies, he asks Hazel and Isaac, another friend, to conduct a pre-funeral for him, so that he can hear how they will memorialize him.

Eight days later, Gus dies, and Hazel speaks at his funeral. Instead of the earnest speech she gave to him and Isaac, she repeats platitudes that will reassure his parents. After the funeral, she meets van Houten, who traveled to America to be there. He reveals that his daughter died of cancer. She provided the inspiration for Anna, the main character of 'An Imperial Affliction' and his rudeness can be partially attributed to Hazel's appearance (she had dressed just like Anna). Hazel encourages him to get sober and write a sequel.

She also discovers Augustus had been writing something for her, although the pages were torn out of his notebook. Eventually, she is able to track the pages to Amsterdam, and after an email to Lidewij, they are retrieved from van Houten. Augustus wanted van Houten to turn his notes into a fitting eulogy for Hazel, but van Houten decides to leave Augustus's words alone.

The book ends with Hazel accepting Augustus's eulogy with a present tense, "I do."

Main characters

• Hazel Grace Lancaster, 16, is the novel's narrator. She goes by Hazel, but Augustus (and sometimes his father) calls her "Hazel Grace". She is a thyroid cancer patient, having been diagnosed when she was 13. She is an only child, and fears what will happen to her parents' relationship after she dies. She is on a "miracle" drug that will lengthen her life by an indeterminable amount of time. She meets Augustus at a support group but does not initially want to pursue a relationship with him, as she wants to minimize the hurt that her death will cause. She has few friends, and prefers the company of books, particularly the fictional An Imperial Affliction, by Peter van Houten. Green stated in a vlog that he named her Hazel "because it's an in-between color, and she has an in-between life, in-between health and sickness".
• Augustus Waters, 17, is in remission. He was diagnosed with osteosarcoma at a young age and lost his right leg to the disease. He loves video games, in particular Counterinsurgence 2: The Price of Dawn and the novelizations of the game. He is initially intrigued by Hazel because of the physical similarities between her and his late girlfriend Caroline Mathers. Augustus uses his Wish (given to him by the Genies, a fictional version of the Make-A-Wish Foundation,) to take himself, Hazel, and her mother to Amsterdam to meet Peter van Houten.
• Isaac, Augustus' best friend. He has eye cancer, and eventually loses his sight because of it. In the beginning of the novel, he is dating a girl named Monica, who dumps him shortly before Isaac goes blind. Isaac is devastated by this, and though he remains bitter over the breakup, finds support in Augustus and Hazel.
• Peter Van Houten, a recluse author whose first and only work, An Imperial Affliction, serves as the basis of most of Hazel's beliefs for both her life and relationship with Augustus. Peter has become a drunkard, and refuses to provide Hazel and Augustus with the answers they seek about his book unless they come to Amsterdam. He is obsessed with Swedish hip-hop group Afasi och Filthy.
• Mrs. Lancaster, Hazel's mom. She often takes every opportunity to be enthusiastic at small occasions, such as Hazel's "half-birthdays", and Bastille Day, a French holiday. Hazel describes her mother as her best friend.
• Mr. Lancaster, Hazel's dad, a man who tends to cry a lot.
• Mrs. Waters, Augustus' mom, described as being short and mousy.
• Mr. Waters, Augustus' dad, first name Mark, described as being skinny for a man his age.
• Lidewij Vliegenthart, van Houten's personal assistant. She quits after he lashes out at Hazel and Augustus, and offers to help Hazel in finding the potential epilogue Augustus wrote for Hazel. She has a boyfriend named Bas, who helps her manage Peter van Houten later in the novel.
• Kaitlyn, One of Hazel's only friends left from high school. She acts like an "extremely sophisticated twenty-five-year-old British socialite stuck inside a sixteen-year-old body" and affects a slight English accent.
• Patrick, the social worker who runs the support group. He once had testicular cancer and was supposed to die, but "miraculously survived" (losing one of his testicles in the process).
• Monica, Isaac's ex girlfriend. Very minor character. Breaks up with Isaac shortly before he goes blind

Early release

On December 21, 2011, Barnes & Noble accidentally shipped 1500 copies of The Fault in Our Stars to people who had pre-ordered the book. Green released a statement saying, "Mistakes happen. The people who made this error were not bad or incompetent people, and they were not acting maliciously. We all make mistakes, and it is not my wish to see Barnes and Noble or any of their employees vilified." Many people who received the book pledged not to read it until its release date, January 10, 2012, as per a request of Green's not to spoil it for other readers.

Publication history

The book rose to #1 on the Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble bestseller lists in June 2011 shortly after its title was announced. Green promised that every pre-order would be hand-signed by him, requiring him to sign every copy of the first printing. He proposed that the general public vote on the color Sharpie he would use to sign the books, resulting in him signing the 150,000 books with a variety of Sharpie colors, each in proportion to the amount of votes received for that color. However, some people who ordered from international booksellers received unsigned copies because those bookstores, including Amazon UK, underestimated how many books they needed and ordered more after the signing was complete, but Green agreed to fix this problem, telling people with unsigned pre-orders to email him so they could be sent a signed bookplate. Many fans submitted their book cover designs to various outlets including Tumblr and Twitter, tagging Green in these posts so he could see them. The sizeable number of posts received has prompted Green's publisher Penguin to seek a fan designed cover for a reprint of one of Green's other books, An Abundance of Katherines. The Fault in Our Stars debuted at #1 on The New York Times Best Seller list for Children's Chapter Books and remained in that spot for seven consecutive weeks. A Hebrew edition of The Fault in Our Stars was published in Israel on August 2012 and more editions of the novel are forthcoming in Dutch, German, Spanish, French, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, Chinese, and Portuguese. The Fault in Our Stars has also gained places on several bestseller lists. It was #1 on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list, #1 on the Indiebound bestseller list, and #9 on The Bookseller bestseller list. The novel was also the New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice. As of January 2013, there are nearly 1 million copies of the novel in print. In December 2012 it was announced that a special edition with a silver cover and an expanded Q&A, dubbed the 'Exclusive Collector's Edition', would be available from Barnes and Noble. All or at least most of the copies first available for purchase of this edition of the book contained a printing error wherein several pages of the first chapter were replaced with pages from the Q&A section at the back of the book.

Critical reception

The Fault in Our Stars has received positive reviews from critics. The New York Times' review of the book called it "a blend of melancholy, sweet, philosophical and funny" and said that it "stays the course of tragic realism", while noting that the book's unpleasant plot details "do nothing to diminish the romance; in Green’s hands, they only make it more moving." NPR's Rachel Syme noted that "[Green's] voice is so compulsively readable that it defies categorization," saying that the "elegantly plotted" book "may be his best." Time called The Fault in Our Stars "damn near genius." Entertainment Weekly wrote, "[Augustus and Hazel's] love story is as real as it is doomed, and the gut-busting laughs that come early in the novel make the luminous final pages all the more heartbreaking", and gave the novel an overall A− grade. Amazon.com calls it “insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw” and Green’s “most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet.” The Manila Bulletin says that the book is “a collection of maudlin scenes and trite observations about the fragility of life and the wisdom of dying. And while it does talk about those things and more, the treatment of it is far from being maudlin or trite.” The Manila Bulletin also added that “Just two paragraphs into the work, and he immediately wallops the readers with such an insightful observation delivered in such an unsentimental way that its hard not to shake your head in admiration.” The Manila Bulletin stated that “The Fault in Our Stars” was a triumph for John Green. USA today called it a “elegiac comedy.” The School Library Journal stated that it was "a strong choice for Adult Collections." USA today gave the book a rating of four out of four stars.

Several well-known authors have contributed their own positive reviews for the book. Jodi Picoult, author of My Sister's Keeper, calls The Fault in Our Stars "an electric portrait of young people who learn to live life with one foot in the grave." She goes on to say that the novel is "filled with staccato bursts of humor and tragedy." Bestselling author of The Book Thief, Markus Zusak, describes it as "a novel of life and death and the people caught in between" and "John Green at his best". Pertaining to Green's writing throughout the book, E. Lockhart, author of The Boyfriend List, says "He makes me laugh and gasp at the beauty of a sentence or the twist of a tale. He is one of the best writers alive and I am seething with envy of his talent." TIME Magazine named The Fault in Our Stars as the #1 fiction book of 2012.

Film adaptation

On February 1, 2012, the film rights to the book were optioned by Fox 2000. Josh Boone was announced as the film's director on February 19, 2013. On March 19, it was announced that Shailene Woodley would play Hazel.