The Fault in Our Stars…

The Fault in Our Stars – John Green

I love to read a good novel and one of the best I’ve read recently is “The Fault in Our Stars,” by John Green.

I’ve been wanting to write a book review  because well,  if you’ve been following along with the blog you need something to read while you’re lounging around on your new throw pillows, right? : )

Seriously though, this book is so beautifully written that I can’t keep quiet about it.  It’s spawned many a website full of quotes and if you read it you’ll see why.

“One swing set, well worn but structurally sound, seeks new home. Make memories with your kid or kids so that someday he or she or they will look into the backyard and feel the ache of sentimentality as desperately as I did this afternoon. It’s all fragile and fleeting, dear reader, but with this swing set, your child(ren) will be introduced to the ups and downs of human life gently and safely, and may also learn the most important lesson of all: No matter how hard you kick, no matter how high you get, you can’t go all the way around.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

The story is written in the voice of two teenagers falling in love and at the same time dying of cancer.  Reading that brief synopsis you might ask yourself why I would suggest that you read something so depressing but here’s the thing – it’s one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read.  It gives a really accurate portrayal of the way love really is sometimes…fleeting and finite despite how desperately we try to hold onto it.

The author, John Green, is a former children’s hospital chaplain and was encouraged to write this book out of the experiences he had during that time.  It’s received 5 stars from almost every review I’ve seen and it’s well deserved.

A few more quotes to encourage you to read…enjoy!

“You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world…but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Much of my life had been devoted to trying not to cry in front of people who loved me, so I knew what Augustus was doing. You clench your teeth. You look up. You tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but a Sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry, and you say all of this to yourself while looking up at the ceiling, and then you swallow even though your throat does not want to close and you look at the person who loves you and smile.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars