The Fault In Our Stars by John Green is a hard book to read. Hazel Grace Lancaster is a grenade. She is going to die, she’s incurable, and the only thing predicted about her life is its uncontrollable unpredictableness. They call this catastrophic way of living a side effect of being terminally ill. However, if these aftereffects are the only evidence of being incurable, aren’t we all? Our days are numbered, we can’t stop it, and just like Hazel, we have no way to comprehend how our lives are going to turn out. Hazel Grace understands that everyone is a ticking time bomb, and has a problem that other people aren’t acknowledging that their days are numbered. Hazel worries that she is going to hurt others around her when her bomb goes off. She spent years trying to make herself not noticeable so others wouldn’t be hurt when she passes away. Her problem is that she is letting the ineluctability of death hold her back. She realizes the necessity of pain, and how life is about loving others.
The first example of Hazel acknowledging her thoughts is when she was at the cancer support group. Gus says he is motivated by his desire to perform a heroic act before he dies and before he himself is forgotten. Hazel states in response to him that everyone will die, which means everything humanity has built up over the time we have been on earth will be for naught. Hazel was unsure about where her religious beliefs were planted, but she believes that just as there was a time before all living things experienced life there will be a time when everything fails to exist. There will be no one left to remember the legends, and the people worth remember. Definitely not to remember one sixteen year old girl who had leukemia. She says that if the end of human oblivion scares you, then just ignore it. That’s what everyone else does.
The next example that comes to mind of Hazel and this obstacle is when Hazel interacts with her parents. Hazel cares about other people and how they feel. She doesn’t want them to feel emotional pain when she leaves them. Towards the very beginning of the book Hazel tells her parents that she is a grenade. She wants to stay away from people and just read and think. She wants to stay with her parents because there’s nothing she can do anymore about hurting them. But she doesn’t want to go out and be a normal teenager because that would mean being interfered with more people than she needs to be, resulting in hurting more people. Towards the end of the book her mom reveals to Hazel that she has been taking college classes to get her degree. She makes references that point to still having something to do when Hazel passes away. Hazel is bizarrely ecstatic, knowing that her mom’s world doesn’t revolve around her. She knows that when she does depart from life, her mom can still go on.
The final example of when this theme shines through this book is when Augustus passes away. She realizes what other people will have to go through when she passes away. Although it hurts, knowing him and being acquainted to him was all worth it in the end. Hazel comes to see at the end of the book that you live through the people who you loved and who loved you. You leave little pieces of you wherever you go, so that even when you leave part of you is still alive.
Hazel and Augustus realize the necessity of pain, and how life is about loving others. Hazel and Augustus have to confront suffering and death in ways that other healthy teenagers don’t. They realize that dying is inevitable, you can’t avoid it. They know that pain is a side effect of living and that suffering is necessary. Suffering is addressed in a way that makes you realize how precious life is, and how we need pain so we can truly appreciate what we have. I really did like this book, it was a book where when you put it down you are left with an emptiness because you almost don’t even know what to do anymore. You realize after reading this book that you only have one life, so you shouldn’t waste it worrying about how it’s going to end. Hazel and Augustus know better than anyone that suffering helps you realize what you have when you have it, and be thankful for it. Augustus helps Hazel realize in the book that when you die, you live through other people who loved you. He showed her that it is a privilege to love someone so much that you lose a part of yourself when they pass away. It would be worth it to be a casualty of a ticking time bomb. That’s what life is, loving everybody and leaving pieces of you wherever you go.