The Fault In Our Stars: Impressions (SPOILERS)

   “As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

              ― Hazel Grace Lancaster

I'm a big, old mess.

I've got a lump in my throat, and I could cry at the drop of a hat, and it's all thanks to John Green.

Finishing Green's The Fault In Our Stars (referred to as TFIOS by the author himself) has left me distant, emotional, listless—and satisfied.  I anticipated that I would appreciate Green's work, as I've watched his various videos on YouTube, enjoying his sense of humor, clever dialogue, and honesty.  But I wasn't prepared for TFIOS.

John Green's hit young-adult novel.
In case it isn't obvious, I really liked it.

Hazel Grace Lancaster suffers from thyroid cancer, though an experimental wonderdrug has bought her some time.  She is wrapped up in her own little world, unaware there's love out there for her--until she meets Augustus Waters at her support group.  Augustus has osteosarcoma, in remission, and even lost a leg to it.  He's also dead sexy, and interested in Hazel, to her surprise.  As the two grow closer-- bonding over Hazel's favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, and over a trip to Amsterdam to meet it's author--their love and understanding of one another grows.

I fell in love with Augustus Waters and Hazel Grace Lancaster, and I am mourning for them in the end. This is Green's great feat; his book is equal parts tragedy and romance, and it works perfectly as both.  It is as sweet and funny as it is serious and mature.  Augustus' blind, bull-headed determination and his guarded ego drew me to him immediately. And Hazel, with her maturity, her fragility, her seriousness, her wit; even as the narrator, as we see her from the inside out, she's compelling from the outside in. I fell in love with Hazel as Augustus did, and I fell in love with Augustus as Hazel did.

Then came the drop. You know it from chapter one, from page one; for Hazel this story will not end well—in the sense that she will not live, not have a long and healthy life. We all have to die, but Hazel is dying sooner than most.  In anticipation for this fact, she has matured, refining her worries into something she can handle. But from the very beginning, you know someone's gonna die. You sense her hidden fear, her anxiety.

But when that drop comes, when the novel's twist hits you, and Hazel survives the love of her life, the narrative turns from being about her death, her end, to being about Augustus,' and the life they had. The finals pages extol Hazel's love and Augustus' legacy, and in that way, the book doesn't end with death so much as it does with life—why we live and care for others in this life, and why we let ourselves get hurt.  This may sound trite, but I assure you it all comes naturally.  This novel is a meditation on sacrifice and suffering, and coming to terms with both.

And so, TFIOS' final chapters are haunting me. Augustus' words haunt me. Hazel's pain is in me, and the pain isn't about disease or death, or about leaving this world without making an impression.  Explained in her own words, Hazel fears that she's a grenade—a time bomb, ready to go off and hurt those around her. She's going to die, and she knows it, and she doesn't want to get too close to Augustus, because she doesn't want to hurt him. She sees her parents suffer, and has seen Augustus suffer after losing someone else, and she doesn't want to be another source of pain for him.  God, isn't that relevant.

Going through my divorce, spending seven years loving someone, trying to make it work, and then having it all just go away... it feels like that if I did that again, if I got close to someone, and they went away again, or I went away... I'm not sure if I could handle it. I mean, I could, but what would it make of me? The book seems to illustrate what could happen, with the only character that could suffice as the villain: Peter van Houten, the author of our two lovers' favorite novel.  He lost his daughter years ago, when she was eight, and it haunts him. He wrote a book about losing her, to give her another life on paper, to try and make her immortal, but now he's crawled into a bottle, and given up on life.

I don't want to become a Peter van Houten, ever. And I fear I that I might, if I don't learn the lessons my life has to offer.

The point of the novel, of this story about loss and love, is addressed beautifully in its final pages.  Augustus hits this sensitive nail right on the head with his own words.  I find it hard to accept, hard to fully swallow--hence the lump in my throat--not because I don't believe it, but because it's just so damn relevant:

        “You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world...but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices.”