The Fault in Our Stars

So it's been a little while since my last blog post, but I've been on my senior trip! So good times and I had plenty of time to get some reading done. Among the three books I finished (personal yay!) I finished The Fault in Our Stars. And I will admit, sitting in the hotel lobby I cried unashamed. But I do have a few problems with it. Okay so now here's the SPOILER ALERT! Like seriously, if you have NOT read the book do not read this next section.... seriously. It'll ruin everything for you...

The ending seemed a little hopeless. It made life out to be kind of simple and hopeless, well not entirely hopeless and simple but more like: you're born, you live, maybe you'll live life without anything seriously damaging your body (in Hazel's and Gus's case they both have to live with cancer), you love and hopefully that love will be an infinite love, and you die. It seemed like that to me. You're born, you live, you love, you die. I know that this book is a lot deeper then that, but that's just how it came across.

Augustus's outlook on love was, like quoting Tennyson, "It's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all." Of course in my mind that quote has always made me want to barf. But after reading Fault it begins to make sense. In the beginning Hazel, who has lived a tad longer than she meant to, believes that because she could die at any moment what is the point in love when she's just going to die? Augustus showed her differently and after his death Hazel would not have taken back the time they had together. So that is one of the positive outlooks of this book.

The one theme through the book is after death. And one of the questions is if we would still love someone even after their death. Will Hazel's mother still be Hazel's mother after Hazel dies? Will Hazel still love Augustus after he dies? And of course, anyone who has read the book knows that the answer is yes. The point in the book (at least what I got from it) is that even though you only have that small amount of time, it's an infinite amount of time.

So even though Augustus's death seemed a little hopeless for me, that nothing really happens when we die. The subject of love is a beautiful picture in this novel.