The Fault in Our Stars

I am at a loss for words.  Not an enviable position to be in when you are trying to describe one of the best books you've ever read.  Notice I didn't say, "one of the best YA books," because it isn't just YA good ~ it is good good.

Augustus Waters and Hazel Grace are teenage cancer patients.  They meet in support group, develop a friendship and fall in love.

There is so much to love in this book.  Do yourself a favor and read it.  Here are some of my book club's favorite lines:

"...suffice it to say, that the existence of broccoli does not in any way affect the taste of chocolate."


"I want this dragon carrot risotto to become a person so I can take it to Las Vegas and marry it."


"That's what I believe.  I believe the universe wants to be noticed.  I think the universe is improbably biased toward consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed.  And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell that universe that it - or my observation of it - is temporary?"


"There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1.  There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others.  Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million.  Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.  A writer we used to like taught us that.  There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbound set.  I want more than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got.  But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity.  I wouldn't trade it for the world.  You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful."


"I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things.  I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you."


"'Mother's glass eye turned inward,'  Augustus began.  As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once."


Blog friends, I could go on and on and on...  Every line is well constructed and crisp.  But I want you to read this book.  Laugh, cry, and be thankful that there are writers like John Green and books like The Fault in Our Stars.


Blog you later!

Ali B.