Published January 2012 Penguin
From the publisher:
Despite the tumour-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.
I will admit that this is the first John Green book I have read. Years ago I started reading Looking For Alaska (and I didn't finish it), I also borrowed An Abundance of Katherines and then Will Grayson, Will Grayson which he wrote with David Levithan (and I didn't even start those). I have only heard good things, and it's just been limited time that has stopped me... so this year I have no excuses, I have to make time...and when you have a review from Markus Zusak on the inside cover, saying that this is John Green at his best, I was happy to be starting with this one.
There is little doubt that someone is going to die in this book, it's right there on the blurb, and if someone's going to die, then it's a book that will make me cry. What surprised me though is that it was also a book that made me laugh.
When the book begins, Hazel Grace lives an insular world that consists of her bed (sleeping fights cancer), her parents, the occasional college lecture and the Cancer Kid Support Group. Hazel knows she is going to die, so the less people she allows to get close to her, the less people will miss her when she's gone. Then she meets Augustus Waters, who has already had a girlfriend who died, so this dying thing is not enough to stop him falling in love with her.
This book is clever, insightful and intelligent, and even though you know that theirs is a doomed romance, it is a romantic story filled with hope. So, I did cry (that was a given, I am a sook), but the book didn't leave me feeling miserable and depressed, rather it made me feel happy to have met these characters and grateful that I picked up this book.
Who will like this
book: Girls 15+
Read it if you like: Before I Die by Jenny Downham
Read it if you like: Before I Die by Jenny Downham
This is my favorite novel that John Green has written. It is filled with emotions that can be felt in the different ways in which they are portrayed. John Green shows the, in a sense, rawness of what can be felt when life throws one a situation in which death seems inevitable.
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