“It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you,” Augustus tells Hazel, the protagonist of The Fault in Our Stars, a realistic fiction book by John Green. Fault in Our Stars is, on the surface, a book where the protagonist has cancer; however, the book goes much, much deeper than just being a story of a cancer-filled life. Hazel Grace is a 16-year-old with cancer whose life was saved when she is one of the lucky 30% of people for whom a new experimental cancer drug actually works, and it buys her a few more years alive. Hazel lives a pretty routine life: she sleeps, goes to the community college for a few classes, comes home. She does not have much time or want for other things like a social life. This changes radically when Hazel’s mom, whose job, as Hazel puts it, is being a full-time cancer mom, forces her to go to Support Group. Support Group is a group of cancer-stricken teens who all tell their stories every meeting and how they’re fighting their cancer. Hazel finds this whole activity pointless and gets practically nothing out of it until she meets Augustus Waters. Augustus is a not-so-average cancer teen and his love of the metaphors in life instantly intrigues Hazel. Augustus sees Hazel not just as a side effect of her cancer, as many non-cancerous people do, but as a real, amazing person. After this meeting, both teenagers’ lives are radically changed, and they are always present for each other on the roller coaster of their not-so-long lives.

I instantly fell in love with this book the first time I read it. I really liked how Green made Hazel such a real teenager that any teen could connect to her, even if they weren’t going through the same things. I think this is one of the main reasons that this book is such a hit with teenagers: all the characters hold up to thorough inspection and seem like they could easily be people you actually know in real life. They exist in more than just the ink on a page. I think that the authenticity of the characters also helped Green fit in such raw, and powerful emotions into this story; the characters seem to ‘channel’ the emotions so that they hit the reader harder and closer to home. In this book, Green also somehow manages to tell an incredibly powerful modern-day tale of love, loss and life.

I would recommend this book to anybody above the age of 12. Even though this book might be marketed towards young adults/teens, adults will still find reading this an enriching experience. I would also recommend this book to anyone who struggles with life, whether it be depression or cancer. However, this book may not be for younger kids, as it does contain some sensitive topics about cancer and how it feels to be dying. The Fault in Our Stars also deals with some other mature topics, like sex. Other than those age restrictions, I would recommend this book to anyone. People of any type will thoroughly enjoy this wonderful story.