“Some infinities are bigger than other infinities, A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I’m likely to get, and Gawd, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the World. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm forever grateful.”  (Chapter 20, page 250) Thats the eulogy Hazel wrote for Augustus Waters or Gus for short. It was both touching and sad at the same exact time and just makes me want to cry every time I read it. The Fault In Our Stars  really described the story because of   its name. It showed us before we even began the book that not all love stories are truly ‘perfect”.

     Augustus Waters, was one of the main characters and was very crucial to the plot and story. Augustus or  “Gus” is a typical  teenage boy who plays basketball but then gets Osteosarcoma, a type of cancer in his leg and they have to amputate  his  leg off  from the knee down to save his life. He’s described as tall, handsome, intelligent, and has mahogany colored hair. He hates the idea of not being able to leave his mark on the world and fears oblivion. He loves metaphors and his favorite saying is “ It's a metaphor , see you put the killing thing right between your  teeth but don't give it the power to do its killing.” { Chapter 1, page 20}. Gus’s friend, Isaac also has cancer and they met before Cancer Kinds Support Group, the single and sole reason he went to Support Group where he meets Hazel Lancaster, or as he called her, Hazel Grace.

     He was a big believer in metaphors and always symbolized the situation with metaphors. He first meets Hazel at Support Group, which he goes to with Isaac to support him before he loses his other eye to cancer. When he first sees Hazel he compares her to Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta. His parents made little pillows with “encouragements” for Gus when he had cancer, one was “if you want the rainbow you have to deal with the rain first” {Page 59}. His joy spread to other people in his saying like this one “ I’m on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friend”. {Chapter 1, page 11}.

      Hazel Lancaster, better known as Hazel Grace is the main character in this story. She is described as having chubby cheeks due to her cancer treatment, a page boy haircut, dark green eyes, dark brown hair, and has to always carry an oxygen  tank with her because of her stage four thyroid cancer and metastasis which has spread to her lungs. She always wears converse high tops  even when she wears a dress. Her boyfriend is Augustus and her best friend is Kaitlyn who as she says is a 25 year old British  socialite trapped in a sixteen year olds body.

  Her absolute favorite book is an Imperial Affliction By Peter Van Houten “theres this unwritten contract between author and writer and I think not ending your book  kinda violates that contract”. {Chapter 5, page 67}. Before she went to Support Group  and met Gus she just stayed at home watching rerun episodes of America’s Next top Model. When she meets Gus she gives him a speech about why oblivion is inevitable when he states that he fears oblivion and he falls head over heals in love with her because of it. At first, Hazel lets her cancer get her down when shes first diagnosed at the age of 13. But than 3 years more later than she's supposed to live she meets Gus.

  Hazel is 16  and  was born in 1998 and Gus is 17 and born 1997. The time frame is about 2013, 2014 and takes place in Indianapolis, Indiana. But its not the  typical tourist Indianapolis,  its the Indianapolis of the sick because they spend so much time in the children's wards of the Indianapolis hospitals. Because of this Hazel doesn't attend high  school and gets  her GED from High school and is enrolled in college classes. Gus is a sophomore in high school  because he missed so much school during his cancer.

    Soon after they meet Gus realizes how unsettled Hazel is about how her favorite book ends. Hazle is obsessed with an Imperial Affliction and how abruptly it ends.  He realizes he hasn't used his wish from the Make a Wish Foundation and uses it on a trip to Amsterdam for Hazel to meet the author, Peter Van Houten. Hazel has a hospital scare right before they go and so they have to delay their plans. Hazel gets better and they go to Amsterdam. “Maybe okay will be our always. Okay I said” {Chapter 5, page 73}

     On their first night in Amsterdam they have a romantic dinner paid for by Peter Van Houtens assistant, Lidewij Vliegenthart. The next day they visit Peter Van Houten but find him to be a miserable, rambling drunk. They also find he has no ending to the book and Augustus vows to write an ending for the book for Hazel. On their last day in Amsterdam Augustus tells Hazel that his cancer has returned and this time the doctors can cure it. “The world is not a wish-granting factory” {Chapter 13, page 214}

     “Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark on this world. leaving a legacy, we all want to be remembered’. {page 310} Cancer, suffering, love, popularity, depression, and healing are all key themes in this plot. “You don't get choose whether or not you get hurt but you do get a say in who hurts you”.{Chapter 25, page 313}

   Augustus dies a few weeks later after the Amsterdam trip and Isaac goes blind when his other eye is removed. At the funeral Peter Van Houten shows up at Gus’s funeral drunk. Isaac’s eulogy: “When the scientists of the future show up at my house with robot eyes., I’ll tell them to screw off because I don't want to see a world without him”. {Chapter 20, page 258}

  In the coming weeks Hazel struggles with depression and comes to terms with dying. She reats Augustus’s  words of love over and over every day and those were her dying words “I’m in love with you, and I know  that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that  we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and i know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I’m in love with you”. {Chapter 10,pg.153}

In the epilogue of this book it says Hazel only dies a few months after gus. Hazel’s mom goes back to school and becomes a counselor to parents with kids that have terminal cancer  kids. Isaac survives and isn't as bitter about his blindness because of all Hazel does for him before she dies and she introduces him to blind video games. Patrick still leads support group and they add Hazel and augustus’s names to their list of martyrs to cancer.

    I would recommend this book to any young adult or teen or parent trying to understand their teen when they come crying to them about how Augustus and Haze die. Its a great and amazing book that shows people to live for today and not for the future. It makes you stop and think about the way you're living your life now and what's in store for your future. Also it makes you stop and think about what would happen if you died today would you leave a mark on the world? Would you leave a legacy of you behind? I loved this book and would highly recommend it!