The Fault in Our Stars is an­oth­er beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten book by John Green. (Af­ter read­ing Look­ing for Alas­ka, I knew I wouldn't be dis­ap­point­ed with his next of­fer­ing.)

Hazel is a 16-year-old girl with stage IV thy­roid can­cer, and has been liv­ing with an oxy­gen tank since she was first di­ag­nosed at around 13. She re­alis­es she is go­ing to die, but she is on a drug that is keep­ing the tu­mors at bay.

Her moth­er in­sists that she must have more of a so­cial life, en­cour­ag­ing her to go out and meet new peo­ple and make new friends.

At a can­cer sup­port group meet­ing, she meets Au­gus­tus Wa­ters, who is in re­mis­sion. He is a sur­vivor of os­teosar­co­ma, a can­cer of the bone and has a pros­thet­ic leg to show for it. They im­me­di­ate­ly hit it off and change each oth­er's lives dras­ti­cal­ly.

Hazel Grace is a char­ac­ter that many girls can fall in love with and re­late to. She lives a sim­ple life and reads books, one book over and over in par­tic­u­lar.

The nov­el she loves so much seems to mir­ror her own life, but has an in­com­plete end­ing that has al­ways trou­bled her. De­spite many let­ters to the au­thor who mys­te­ri­ous­ly dis­ap­peared af­ter the nov­el, Hazel Grace has nev­er got­ten a re­sponse or an ex­pla­na­tion to the abrupt end­ing of the book and con­clu­sion to the char­ac­ters that in­trigue her so much.

Au­gus­tus is com­plete­ly tak­en by Hazel Grace and to­geth­er, they em­bark on a jour­ney fund­ed by Au­gus­tus' per­son­al wish that he in turn gave to Hazel Grace. If that isn't love, I don't know what is.

The char­ac­ters in The Fault in Our Stars are all so hi­lar­i­ous, re­al, pos­i­tive and re­silient. John Green is able to not on­ly make you laugh, but al­so make you cry.

As a read­er, it made me re­alise just what life must be like for some­one who has can­cer, or los­es their sight, or car­ries an oxy­gen tank around every­where and some­one who knows what it's like to those they love.

It al­so made me be­lieve that as a healthy per­son, I should be liv­ing more, lov­ing more and en­joy­ing life more, tak­ing in all that the world can of­fer.

In an in­ter­view with the au­thor at the end of the au­dio book, John Green was asked what he want­ed peo­ple to get from this book in par­tic­u­lar.

He said he want­ed peo­ple to un­der­stand that very sick peo­ple are still peo­ple, that they are not apart from healthy peo­ple.

We tend to sep­a­rate from the ter­mi­nal­ly ill be­cause we don't be­lieve, or want to be­lieve, that that could ever be us.

But at the very bit­ter end (un­less we go quick­ly) it will most def­i­nite­ly be us, and we will still be who we al­ways were, just mov­ing a bit slow­er.

Thus, The Fault in Our Stars is a beau­ti­ful­ly craft­ed book that en­ter­tains and has the po­ten­tial to change your life.