Is there any point in me writing a review of The Fault in Our Stars by John Green? It’s a fantastic book and (at last count) 95,620 people on Goodreads also thought it was a fantastic book. Of those 95,620 people, a massive 16,906 of them took the time to write a review! Need I say more? Or write more? Probably not, so I’ll keep it brief.

The Fault in our Stars is the story of teenager Hazel, who was diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at age 13 and then given an experimental ‘miracle’ drug at 14 – not a cure but it shrunk her tumours. Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time, Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault.

“Admittedly, my Cancer Miracle had only resulted in a bit of purchased time. (I did not yet know the size of that bit.)”

Enter Augustus Waters. Hazel and ‘Gus’ meet at a cancer kid support group. Gus is gorgeous, in remission and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel – “Flirting was new to me, but I liked it.”

All sounds rather grim, doesn’t it?! But this is not, as Hazel might say, a Cancer Book. The kids are real – including throwing the odd tantrum, acknowledging that their lives suck, using ‘Cancer Perks’ when they can and watching America’s Next Top Model marathons. Continue reading →