Earlier this year, The Fault In Our Stars broke out of the Young Adult market to become a mainstream bestseller.
A movie is already in production, set for a June 2014 release, but whether it will capture the hard-nosed but soft-centred intelligence of Green's novel we will just have to wait and see.
It is written from the point of view of 16-year-old cancer patient Hazel, who lives in Indiana. A fictional drug called Phalanxifor has shrunk her tumours, but no one pretends that it has bought her anything more than a few years. Hazel is a bright, articulate and witty kid, and she meets her intellectual equal, recovering bone cancer sufferer Augustus, at a support group. Under different circumstances, this would be the beginning of a beautiful relationship. But Hazel is reluctant to get involved with anyone if they are going to have to go through the sorrow of losing her.
So - although they are obviously meant to be together - Hazel and Augustus tentatively circle around each other. At the stage where Hazel is unwilling even to hold hands, she introduces him to her favourite novel, An Imperial Affliction ("It's not a cancer book, because cancer books suck"), written by a reclusive author who now lives in Amsterdam. More than anything, Hazel wants to find out what happened to the characters after the end of the book, and she and her new love hatch a plan to travel to Amsterdam - Hazel trailing her ever-present oxygen tank - and ask the author personally.
Green captures Hazel's tone effortlessly, never sounding like a 35-year-old man trying to imitate teenage speech patterns. Luckily for him and the reader, Hazel is eloquent and an adept exponent of gallows humour. Above all, though, it is a genuinely poignant, moving book. Both wearily accustomed to living with cancer, Hazel and Augustus are on the same page, implicitly understanding each other's thoughts and moods. Long before they met, they had become reconciled to the fact the universe is indifferent to our wishes. Together, they just want to seek out the positive side of a heartbreaking situation. This is the kind of book that gives tearjerkers, and teenage literature, a good name.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article