The Fault in Our Stars [Spoilers, spoilers, and more spoilers]

I loved it, but I also hated parts of it…?

I’m definitely a fan of John Green’s writing (I read Looking for Alaska a while back and loved it), but there were just a few things that irked me about this book. Most of them trivial, but whatever.

First off, I wasn’t feeling the names. I have a hard time picturing a guy with the name Augustus to be a total babe. Perhaps if he was just Gus the entire time instead of just towards the end it would have been easier. The only Augustus I can picture is Augustus Gloop and yeah…ew.

I love the name Hazel, but there was just something off about Augustus always calling her Hazel Grace. I don’t know why it seemed this way, but it did. Too forced or something. Like if Robbie decided to call me Sarah Elizabeth all the time I would think it was strange. 

And then I was totally spoiled by NPR (so I guess this isn’t the book’s fault) when I was googling. I just wanted to go to Amazon to see how many pages the book is since I was reading it on my Kindle and it doesn’t tell you, but this NPR article was the third result and it says right on the results page something like, “Two terminally ill teenagers fall in love…” so I accidentally saw it. Fuck you, NPR! Not having read any descriptions other than “Hazel is a 16-year-old with terminal cancer” I didn’t know anything else about the story. You don’t even find out Gus is terminal until towards the end! You’re supposed to believe he’s healthy up until he starts randomly wincing in pain and then finally tells Hazel that the cancer is everywhere.

I thought Hazel was a little shit to Van Whatshisname. He was a douche, but even before you discover that his own daughter died of Leukemia, I still didn’t think he deserved her rage over details of a story. Maybe that’s just me.

Also, Hazel could be a bit depressing and pretentious. I know she’s dying and all, but I don’t know. I liked Augustus’s perspective on things better (though I suppose towards the end he got a little cynical too).

My biggest thing, I guess, is that Augustus is a tad too romanticized for my liking. I have a big thing against Nice Guys who Try Too Hard. I don’t think Gus was a typical Nice Guy (only does nice things for his own gain and isn’t actually a nice person), but he definitely tried a little hard. He reminded me of someone I know, so maybe that’s why I occasionally wanted to roll my eyes. 17-year-olds just aren’t like that. He was a likable character, though. I was sad for him. I didn’t expect him to be the one who dies.

And, of course, I cried. That was to be expected.