Many, many, many people had insisted that I must read TFIOS and that it would make me sob like a baby. As many of my friends know that I cry at every single emotion. Happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, fear, shock, laughter. You name it, my reaction would probably be to have tears sprouting from my
eyes. And I cry in practically every film. Another reason why I wasn't particularly drawn to read it. Why would I want to read a book that would make me bawl like a baby?
Anyway, there was one day I was making a large Amazon book haul, I saw that the book was £3.85 so I figured, what the heck? It was added to the basket, and two weeks later it was on my doorstep. Last weekend I went to London, and I thought I'd take it for some easy reading on the train. It was very easy to read, I very much enjoyed Mr John Green's style of writing as it is not dissimilar to his way of speaking on his vlogs, which I try and watch every week. I finished it in a day.
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves" - William Shakespeare.
I'm going to assume that this is the quote that inspired the title of this book. I can see that Mr John Green has used the quote almost ironically, as the tragic love story between Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters is very much written in the stars and it is fate what is happening to them and there is nothing that can be changed about it.
Here is where my opinion may be a little different to the majority of people.....I wasn't that overly impressed it. The story, in my opinion, is a little so-so, and I feel that it got the attention it received because the story was centred around cancer. I didn't sob like people had promised. I did get a little lump in my throat, but I was completely dry-eyed for the entire book. I found the main character a little irritating, constantly comparing herself to a fictional character of her favourite book, and to be honest, I think I would have preferred to know the story from Gus's point of view (although I can see how that wouldn't quite work.....)
They fell in love in what seemed like 5 minutes, and they are of the ages of 16 and 17. I'm sorry, but it is highly unlikely that what they were feeling was indeed True Love, and even if [SPOILER ALERT] Gus hadn't died at the end, the relationship probably would not have lasted for a long time. I may be wrong, but I couldn't help think this with every sentence that I read.
I spoke to a very good friend of mine, and although she hadn't read the book, she said that one of the reasons why the story is so popular is due to the romantic and tragic notion of the two protagonists suffering from this disease and the inevitability of death. However, don't you think that this may be romanticising a dreadful disease like cancer?
I am terribly sorry to my dear friends who had recommended me to read TFIOS to read, but it had very high expectations, and the book simply did not live up to them.
If you have any opinions that you would like to share with me, then please feel free to discuss them in the comments below.
