What I Read -- The Fault In Our Stars

This is a book about kids with cancer.  Sounds depressing, right?  And in some ways, it really is.  But it's also great.

The title comes from William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, in which the actual quote is this: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings." Typically this quotation is interpreted as blaming our own failings for our current human condition.  It's an interesting twist in the title then, to say that the fault is, in fact, in the stars.  That the cancer the kids in the book have is just fate, not something that anyone has any control over.  And at least in the case of kids with cancer, that's probably true.

The story is told from the point of view of Hazel, a sixteen-year-old girl testament to the miracle of modern medicine.  Some years earlier, she had been diagnosed with stage IV thyroid cancer, but an experimental drug shrunk her tumors and allowed her to reach some level of stasis.  She's in this condition when she meets Augustus Waters at a cancer support group.  Gus is in remission and is interested in Hazel; she's hesitant for reasons that become clear, but their journey together is emotionally medicinal for both of them.

Hazel is wise beyond her teenage years, a not-uncommon side effect of a terminal condition like hers.  Nonetheless, the (adult male) author's ability to describe the world through her eyes and level of understanding is impressive.  Good stuff.