I saw the March Book Club on Peanut Butter Finger's blog and I was excited to get in on it. I don't think the book was the one that I voted for {I honestly can't remember which one I voted for} and I don't think it is a book that I would have ever picked up. I have to say that it is another book in a long line of books that I have ready lately that I have loved.
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.
I said before how much I loved this book, that was before I read the end and I cried my eyes out through the entire last chapter.
So let's talk about the book.
The narrator, Hazel, is a 16 year old three year stage IV cancer survivor, she meets Augustus at a cancer support group. He is a cancer surviror who lost his leg to the disease. Yes, they are teenagers and yes, they fall in love. Hazel is reluctant to get close to Augustus because she learns his last girlfriend, also a cancer patient, did not survive her disease.
You have to know going in that this book is going to deal with death, and you know that these two teenagers are going to fall in love, but the book was so much more than that. I love that it dealt with Hazel's feelings about what her parents, especially her mother's, live was beause of her and her cancer. She worried about what her parents lives were going to become when she was gone. She felt guilty, for this horrible disease, and how it had shaped and would continue to shape the lives of her parents after she is gone. It was this guilt that initially kept her distant from Augustus.
What a burden it is for her to know that she will ultimately cause so much grief and saddness for the people she cares about. Hazel worried that she was her mother's whole life, and at some point she will be gone.
I liked that they had a pre-funeral, because ultimately shouldn't we be able to tell the people we care about exactly what their live has meand to us? I think most people have considered what would happen after they die. Not from the whole if there is a heaven perspective, but what happens to all of the people we leave behind. Is it what we leave behind that marks the life we lived? For Hazel it is her parents and the life they will have inspite of, and as a result of, her life and her death.
I liked the parallels with the novel that was discussed throughout the book. It didn't really have an ending, and this book didn't really feel like it had an ending either. There really isn't an ending for Hazel and her parents. It almost makes me want to write a letter to the author to see if he will tell me what happens to them. For most books I think I would be bothered by that, but for this book I am strangely accepting of it.
In all, this was a very good book.
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I loved this book too. I found it quite different to other books I've read before or of late and plan to read more of John Greens books.
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