...not to give me more than I could handle. I put off reading The Fault in Our Stars because I knew it would be sad. I even bought it right when it came out in order to get a signed copy, plus I have become a book snob and prefer hardbacks. While not giving in to the e-book craze I have gone excessively in the other direction to make sure the books I buy are hefty and solid. None of those flimsy paperbacks for me...unless I get them used and the price is fabulous.
So anyway, The Fault in Our Stars did make me cry. Not quite as much as A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, but close. Just like many of John Green's other works it is mainly a love story about two really funny teens who happen to have cancer and are obsessed with this book and its author who lives in Amsterdam and have friends with cancer. The fun in the book is the two main characters know the young cancer patient stereotypes and try to thwart them, but in some way become them anyway because it is difficult to be dying young of cancer and not evoke that pity and sadness in others.
Hazel and Augustus though are at their most important two teens in love for the first time. I'd put the level of sweetness in their falling in love up there with Anna and the French Kiss and Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins. These stories are important reminders that teen love is just as real as that felt between adults. Just because adults diminish it because their young relationships did not become "forever" ones does not mean that what they or others felt is not REAL love.
I love a good love story and the sad part was not more than I could handle because the happy part was so euphoric. I should have trusted you John Green.
