Reflection On The Fault in Our Stars: Opinion Essay
- Title: The Fault In Our Stars
- Author: John Green
- Publisher: Penguin Books UK
- Number of pages: 313
Why did I choose this book: I chose this book because I already saw the movie and I found it very impressive, so I was curious about the book.
- a: Realistic, love story
- b: The story is told from Hazel’s perspective.
- c: I think the writer chose for this title because it stands for that person with cancer are a fault but that doesn’t mean that they are less important.
- When: The story is set recent, in the same time we live. They are very modern, the are driving cars, have mobile phones and they took the airplane to The Netherlands.
- Where: Hazel’s home, Augustus’s home, the support group, Amsterdam.
- Time: It is hard to say but I think from the beginning till the end there was 0,5 or 1 year expired.
Summary.
Hazel is a sixteen-year-old girl she already should be dead. She has cancer and three years ago she already thought she couldn’t live anymore, but a medicine made sure she could live at least a few years longer. Hazel doesn’t have many friends because she can’t go to school. Her parents are extremely worried about so they send her to a support group from the church. She finds it terrible, but someday there is suddenly a new boy at the group. His name is Augustus Waters. He immediately caught her attention. Augustus actually only came to the group because of his friend Isaac, who has eye cancer. Augustus himself also had cancer but survived, but he had to amputate one of his legs, so he only has one leg left. Hazel and August start to hang out together and quickly they have a very strong friends relationship. Hazel actually doesn’t wants to make new friends because she doesn’t want to hurt people when she dies, so she keeps people a little remote. Slowly the two fall in love with each other, but Hazel finds it hard to allow that. He favorite book is ‘’An Imperial Affliction’’ by Peter van Houten, a writer who lives in Amsterdam. The book is about a sick girl and in the middle of the story it just stops. Hazel thinks it is because the girl dies or becomes to sick to write the book further, but she really wants to know what happened with the other characters in the book and how the story ends. Advised by Hazel, Augustus also reads the book. Now he is curious too, and decides to email the secretary of Peter van Houten. She tells them that Peter van Houten wants to answer all her questions, but not over the internet they have to come to Amsterdam so he can tell them in person because he doesn’t know if he can trust them. But there is one problem the parents Hazel don’t have enough money to pay the trip and she already used her wish from The Wish Foundation. Augustus arranges that he can use his wish from The Wish Foundation to fly him and Hazel to Amsterdam so they both can meet Peter van Houten. They have an unbelievable nice and romantic time together and they are totally in love, but the meeting with Peter van Houten doesn’t seem to be as good as they hoped. Van Houten seems to be an alcoholic and he’s absolutely not friendly. Hazel and Augustus still didn’t get the answers they hoped for.
When they are home again it turns out that Augustus’ cancer returned. They spend as much time as they can together during the last phase of Augustus’s life. After a couple of weeks Hazel gets a call in the middle of the night, it’s the mother of Augustus telling her that he died. Hazel is devastated. Peter van Houten suddenly shows op at the funeral of Augustus. She is not sure if she wants contact with him but she can’t avoid him. He was drunk again so he was acting funny about it all. During the conversation, Hazel hears that van Houten has lost his daughter because she had cancer and that that’s the reason why he stopped writing.
After the death of Augustus, Hazel finds out that Augustus planned to write an end for the book for her. She searches on his computer but finds nothing. Later, the father of Augustus calls her to tell her that thy found a notebook where the first pages are torn out. Hazel is looking for the book everywhere and ended up writing another letter to van Houten to ask If Augustus wrote to him. Eventually, van Houten said that Augustus didn’t wrote an end of the book because he was to sick to do that, but he did asked van Houten to write an end for Hazel.
Hazel: Is a sixteen-year-old girl. She is very smart but has few friends because most of the time she was in the hospital because she has cancer and can’t goes to school. Her mom thinks she is depressed so she sends her to a support group where she meets Augustus.
Augustus: is a seventeen-year-old boy, he is very confident even though he has one leg left. He survived cancer, but later in the book he find out that he has cancer again. He falls in love with Hazel.
Isaac: Is a friend of Augustus, he also goes to the support group. He has eye cancer, he already has one eye removed, in the middle of the book the doctors have to also remove his other eye.
Peter van Houten: writer of ‘an imperial affliction’ the favorite book of Hazel.
He is an alcoholic and doesn’t want contact with anybody.
How is the book written:
I think that the book is well written I understood everything, they didn’t use very difficult words and explained everything very good. I didn’t had the feeling that I wanted to skip a part of the book, the opposite actually I wanted to keep reading so I know what was going to happen and how it would end.
The story was…
- a: Very good
- b: exactly right
- c: I chose this book because I already saw the movie and I found it very impressive, so I was curious about the book. Also my friends told me it was a good book.
- d: I would recommend this book because, it is very impressive. It really makes you think about life and how fast it can be over. So you have to appreciate everything in life is the lessons I learned from it.
My opinion.
As I already said before I find the book very impressive. I couldn’t stop reading because I wanted to know what was going to happen and how it was going to end. It was very realistic so you can relate to most parts of the book. Also I think cancer is still a hard subject to talk about for everyone, and it’s for people who for example ha d cancer that they are not the only ones.
