Dear John Green,
I’m at a loss of words. I truly am. Your book, The Fault in our Stars, has blown me away and made me discover things about myself that I didn’t even know 318 pages could ever possibly do. Just like you said in your book, “My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.” I would need more than just a letter to fully capture my feelings about this book, but I hope you understand how much this creation of yours has truly changed me as a person and how I live everyday. I want to thank you for writing this book and giving me the chance to read it. And thank you for reminding me how precious the life we live truly is.

I have learned that I too take so much for granted and living my life through Hazel’s point of view really proved to me that every breath, blink, sound, or feeling I should be grateful for. But as humans, we don’t realize what we have until it’s gone. It’s so cliché when people say: “Live life to the fullest” or even, “YOLO”. But even the meaning behind the silly catchphrase that originated from a Drake rap song is so powerful. Why waste a single minute on this earth? Every tick-tock of the clock is just another second that I will never be able to get back. Someone can have all the money in the world and someone can have no money, the amount of time in a day that each has is the same. You cannot buy time, you cannot hope for time, you cannot go back in time. All you can do is simply live in the now. I always lived in this fixated bubble and always thought, Oh I have so much time left on this earth, who cares what I do now as a naïve teenager? But Hazel showed me how life goes by in an instant and sometimes life is taken from us way too early.

As soon as I opened the book, there was a quote about Dutch Tulip Man talking about how precious time was and just like water, took everything with it. Once I started, I read and read and read and read. I didn’t stop, more like I couldn’t stop nor did I want to. While I read this book, I put myself in Hazel’s shoes. I felt witty when she coolly stated a quote, poem, even a comeback. I cried when Hazel lost Gus. I was disappointed when everything Hazel looked forward to in Amsterdam was nothing like she expected and even, worse. I felt on top of the world when Hazel did. I became Hazel. I was no longer Hannah Yoo from a small town in New Jersey that should have probably been doing her homework. I was Hazel Grace Lancaster.

John (can I call you that?), I don’t think you understand how much of an impact this book has made on me in such a short time and I feel as though you have searched through my diary to create this book. All aspects of your book made me appreciate life and the time I have. However, there was one part that really resonated with me. A part that many overlooked to get to the juicy details, but a part nonetheless. A part that opened up my closed wounds and exposed my deepest, darkest fears. It was when Gus lifted the cigarette to his lips, his hamartia or fatal flaw. But Gus said these very simple, yet life-changing lines: “They don’t kill you unless you light them. And I’ve never lit one. It’s a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don’t give it the power to do it’s killing.” The fact that many have the privilege of breathing, which Hazel wasn’t fortunate to have, and yet they take that for granted and continue to smoke anyways. I understand that it’s an addiction and it’s hard to stop, but why would you give anything the power to do its killing?

The first time I heard about The Fault in Our Stars was, surprisingly, in a YouTube video. But I never once thought to pick it up for myself though, no matter how amazing it was claimed to be. It was only until my friend from school recommended it for me. I didn’t really think much of it. Surely, I would forget about it shortly after I read it like all the other books that faded into my memory. I was wrong, oh so wrong.

Sincerely,
Hannah