Seems odd that I'd finish reading my pick for book of the year for 2012 on January 6th, 2013, but there you go.
Let me just say this: if you have not read The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green, yet, please stop reading this blog immediately and go pick up a copy...I'll wait.
Hold on...I don't think everyone is finished reading yet...
OK. That was amazing, right?
I'm hardly the first to heap praise on this novel. After all, TIME Magazine named it the #1 fiction book of 2012. It also sold out its 150,000 first printing after Green promised he'd sign every single copy with the Sharpie color of your choice. Still, I was totally unprepared for the feelings this book brought out from me. It's been a while since I was moved to tears from a book, but the characters here - Hazel, Augustus, and Isaac - had me outright crying. And not just once.
But don't think this is a book of sadness and pain. Well, it is, but it's also a book about life and how to be remembered. By someone. By anyone.
It is, more than anything else, a book to make you consider your own life. Why are you here? Will you be remembered? Will your life matter?
I simply can't recommend this book highly enough. Read it now.
"I'm on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friend."
Thank you for recommending this book! I'd seen it, but hadn't taken the time to look at it seriously. And maybe I'd avoided it because of the cancer factor. All too often a book with cancer in the plot will be depressing, or saccharine, or sentimental. Or all three. But I loved this book. So glad I "read" it (actually I listened to it on CDs from the library. It gave some expressions to some feelings I'd had as a sick adult that I hadn't quite figured out how to express (the grenade metaphor).
ReplyDeleteIt's just a wonderful book. If you're interested in more John Green, try "An Abundance of Katherines." Not as heartbreaking, much funnier, and another set of amazing characters. Also, John Green has quite a presence online: head to Nerdfighters.com for more of his antics.
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