The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars: Book Review

Summary:

Hazel Grace has more or less accepted her short life -- dying of terminal cancer at the age of sixteen, she spends her days peacefully watching America's Next Top Model and rereading her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction. She might have continued this way if not for Augustus Waters, a boy she meets at cancer support group whose life becomes irrevocably entwined with Hazel's in ways that are both wonderful and painful.

Overview:

Without spoilers I can tell you that this a masterfully written book that made me both laugh and cry. In John Green's typical style, he captures the perfect tragic comedy. Although, I'd have to warn anyone who's lost someone to cancer that this book will be both cathartic and terrible--like rubbing alcohol onto an open wound. This is not, however, the fault of the book. As the title clearly states, it's the fault of our stars that might make this book more difficult for some than others. Yet, in spite of the dark places it took me, I couldn't put it down--probably because it took me to good places too, places where even mostly unremembered, short lives matter.

I'd give this book 9 / 10 stars * * * * * * * * *

Personal Experience:

I got to see John Green on tour for this book. Unfortunately, I hadn't had time to read the book, yet. But since he tries to avoid spoilers on tours, this might have been for the best. If you don't already know, John Green has an excellent YouTube channel with his brother called, the vlogbrothers. So this was really just a vlogbrothers tour in disguised as a book tour. This means there was lots of fun dancing and singing in addition to talking about literature. It's largely due to his online fan following that he's a best-selling author, so I doubt his publishers mind the strangely unrelated additions to his tour. He was always a good author, but the vlogs helped his notoriety exponentially.

Here's their awesome tour bus.

Here's me in front of the bus. I know, you can all barely contain your excitement. You know that in all your lives you'll never see another vehicle full of this much awesome. Not even the Oscar Mayer Weiner Mobile or the Red Bull Car. I've ruined vehicular excitement forever.

Behind me you see Hank Green (in the black shirt) and John Green (in the green shirt). My book was signed by John and a lovely Hanklerfish was drawn by Hank, based on one of his songs. My shirt is also a vlogbrothers shirt based on a song about people who love giraffes who love giraffes.

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Spoilers:

I think John Green hits a very interesting theme of how it might ruin some of our heroes if we met them. There's also the point that you do not have to be a good person to create something good, and sometimes our interpretations of things are more important than the artist's.

I've met a couple of my favorite authors (John Green and Neil Gaiman), and it was excellent. However, I admit others of my favorite authors I'm actually not sure I would like to meet. Like Peter Van Houten, I think they created something beautiful, but I am not sure I would like them as people or that they would like me.

I sensed throughout the books that Hazel wasn't going to find the answers she sought from Van Houten. Still, this sense did not dull my compulsion to find out what she did find. I was less interested in Van Houten than I was in Hazel's development, and I think that's as it should have been.

John Green did an excellent job writing from the perspective of a sixteen year old girl. Augustus and Issac's characters were also very real--the type of well-crafted character you can almost see and touch. I felt there was more distance with the parents and the part where Hazel's father tells her he thinks the universe wants to be noticed sounded very literary for a man who had just proclaimed his lack of literary skills. But it didn't bother me that much because, for the most part, there's so much truth in this story. Like Hazel, I don't feel the need to be remembered. I think our lives can be important without us being important outside those who love us, and I'm glad John wrote this beautiful ode to life.

How Libraries Work: Why Did They Move My Books?

Hmm... Maybe we should arrange books by color...

QUIZ: Why do libraries rearrange their collections?

• A.) To give themselves more space
• B.) Because we're preparing for book-shifting to become an Olympic sport
• C.) To make old men cry

The library I currently work for has rearranged their collection. Previously, they had a mystery section, a science fiction and fantasy section, and a western section. They have interfiled all their genre sections into one adult fiction section, which is library-speak for arranging all the fiction from A-Z by the author's last name. Genre books still have stickers distinguishing them from other books.

We had an uproar, particularly from the fans of our western section. I found this interesting because I once read in Neil Gaiman's blog that he used to see western sections in bookstores all the time but hadn't seen one in years. I have to agree with him. I've never seen a western section in my lifetime outside of the library where I work. This might explain the vocal protest from already marginalized western fans, but if you find yourself in a similar situation, I promise libraries don't make these kind of changes to vex you.

One of the reasons a library would make this kind of shift is to save space. If you think about it, a genre section that's not growing as fast as the rest of the fiction section, westerns for instance, are taking up space that could be used by other books.

It also makes it easier to rearrange books. You have one section to shift as opposed to four different sections to negotiate.

The reasoning most cited by my own library was organization. Oftentimes, authors in a genre section could be found in the general fiction section as well, particularly in the case of mystery. There are many reasons why a library would have the same book in two different sections. If we did it on purpose, it could be because we want people in either section to find the book. If we did it on accident, it could be that the person / program, in charge of cataloging the program was unaware of its genre.

With the A-Z organization, when you go to author's name in fiction, all of their books are there as opposed to some. This makes browsing easier if you're browsing by author. You don't have to worry that you missed a book that wasn't in the section that you assumed held all of the author's books.

So, those are some of our reasons. I can see both the pros and the cons to either organization. I admit I'm an avid fantasy reader. I've been branching out more lately, but it is nice to have a designated section to search (NOTE: Fantasy is NOT the same as science-fiction, and anyone who thinks it is is dead to me). On the other hand, I can understand another of Neil Gaiman's sentiments--that libraries and bookstores should all be arranged A-Z so people would be exposed to books outside their ordinary interests. Shelving books has really shown me the worth of this. I see books when I'm shelving that I wouldn't normally ever look for, but which capture my interest.

However, if people would still prefer not to bother with books outside their genres and your library has an A-Z organization, you can always make a list of authors or ask the library staff who are there to help you find what you're looking for.