I’m participating in the YA Book Club, hosted by Tracey Neithercott. Today we are discussing The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. This post contains spoilers.

The Fault in Our Stars is a love story. About two teens. With terminal cancer.

Though I love every single one of John Green’s prior novels (as well as his YouTube videos), I wasn’t initially excited to read something so…depressing. Teenagers with terminal cancer? How cruel!

As I dove in, I quickly realized this wasn’t a typical cancer story. It’s so much more. Yes, there are sad moments but there are also funny (yes, funny!) and heartwarming ones.

There’s so much I loved about this book, but for the sake of keeping this post short, I’ll focus on my two favorite parts:

Anyone who’s read my blog for a while knows that I love contemporary YA, and I’m a sucker for romance (hello, obsession with Anna and the French Kiss). The romance between Hazel and Augustus develops quickly but Green does a fantastic job of portraying it in a believable way. Hazel and Augustus know time is running out, so they choose to get caught up in each other and live life to its fullest. The romance adds hope to an otherwise grim story. The scenes in Amsterdam are wonderful. I care about Hazel and Augustus immensely and makes me happy to see them happy together.

This book covers some heavy topics, besides mortality. For example, Augustus fears oblivion, the idea that when he dies, people will forget him. This causes a debate between him and Hazel about what our worth is as humans, and whether you need to have done something huge in your lifetime to be remembered after you die. Hazel thinks that even having one person, one loved one, remember you when you die is enough. Regardless of who you agree with, it’s an interesting discussion point and I enjoyed exploring it with the characters.

Also, there was one passage toward the end of the book that really stuck with me. Augustus says:

“If you go to the Rijksmuseum, which I really wanted to do–but who are we kidding, neither of us can walk through a museum. But anyway, I looked at the collection online before we left. If you were to go, and hopefully someday you will, you would see a lot of paintings of dead people. You’d see Jesus on the cross, and you’d see a dude getting stabbed in the neck, and you’d see people dying at sea and in battle and a parade of martyrs. Not. One. Single. Cancer. Kid. Nobody biting it from the plague or smallpox or yellow fever or whatever, because there is no glory in illness. There is no meaning to it. There is no honor of dying of.” (p. 217)

Because of this book and particularly that passage, I’ll never think about cancer, and those who go through SO much to fight it, the same way again. My mom is a cancer survivor and I now see what she went through in a new light. What she did was honorable. I read the above passage aloud to my husband and told him he had to read this book. He recently read the Pulitzer Prize winner, The Emperor of All Maladies, which is a non-fiction history of cancer and apparently a fascinating read.

I could go on and on but will stop here. I’m excited to be part of this book club so I can hear what you all think! Did you love the romance and deeper themes too? What stuck with you the most?