The Fault in Our Stars, John Green, 2012

The Fault in Our Stars Review

About

Published in 2012, John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars became an instant modern classic—a love story about illness, mortality, and finding meaning in the briefest of lives. What could have been sentimental is instead sharp, funny, and heartbreakingly self-aware. Green writes teenagers who think and speak with painful clarity, aware of how unfair life is but unwilling to stop loving it anyway.

Overview

The novel follows Hazel Grace Lancaster, a sixteen-year-old living with terminal cancer, and Augustus Waters, a survivor whose charm and curiosity draw her out of isolation. They meet in a support group, bond over literature, and fall in love not despite their diagnoses but alongside them. Their romance unfolds with humor and defiance, as they confront what it means to live meaningfully when time itself feels like a borrowed gift.

Summary

(light spoilers) Hazel’s world revolves around oxygen tanks, medical appointments, and the existential boredom of survival. Augustus, with his boundless energy and one-liners, pulls her into an adventure—a trip to Amsterdam to meet the reclusive author of their favorite book. What begins as an escapist quest becomes an emotional reckoning. Augustus’s health declines, and Hazel learns that grief is the price of real connection. The novel’s final act is neither cruel nor comforting; it’s honest. Love, in Green’s world, doesn’t conquer death—it dignifies it. Their story lingers because it feels lived, not written.

Key Themes / Main Ideas

• Mortality — the courage to live while dying.
• Love and impermanence — connection as defiance.
• Humor as survival — wit against despair.
• Storytelling — how fiction gives life meaning.
• Grief — love’s inevitable twin.

Strengths and Weaknesses

• Strengths — Authentic dialogue, emotional honesty, and the rare ability to balance tragedy with laughter.
• Strengths — A book that treats teens as thinkers, not caricatures.
• Weaknesses — The stylized dialogue can feel too clever at times.
• Weaknesses — Its emotional directness may overwhelm readers unprepared for its sincerity.

Reviewed with focus on themes, audience, and takeaways — John Green