As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.

The Fault In Our Stars is a book written by John Green and published in 2012. It tells the story of Hazel Lancaster, a seventeen-year-old girl with a terminal case of cancer, and how the rest of her life changes once she meets a boy named Augustus Waters.

The Fault In Our Stars is the kind of book you know is gonna end in tears, but love it for exactly that. As a friend of mine put it: ” This book ruined my life, and i have never read anything better.” However, it’s far from being depressing or rolling in the pain and sadness brought by cancer as such a major topic. It actually feels wrong to introduce this book with the mention of cancer because people often have a strong picture in their minds what ”cancer books” are like. And in my opinion, The Fault In Our Stars doesn’t fit that picture, it’s so much more than that. I think the best way to read it would be to just start in the beginning, with no clues on what the book is about, making yourself able to fall into the story with no expectations for it whatsoever.

Now, it has probably already become apparent how much I enjoyed reading The Fault In Our Stars. That’s actually one of the book’s biggest strengths: it’s incredibly enjoyable to read. Green’s writing is original in the best way. He has the gift of writing text where every word seems to be carefully picked out and thought about, and yet the sentences flow effortlessly, capturing you and making it impossible to put the book down. Over and over again he takes you by surprise with sudden bursts of happiness and sadness thrown where you’d least expect it. He also toys with language and storytelling by, for example, intentionally having a character use as complicated words as possible.

Another extraordinary thing about The Fault In Our Stars is the characters. They’re impossible to not fall in love with, they feel real in a way that makes you really care about their lives and what happens to them. As much as The Fault In Our Stars is a love story of two teenagers, star-crossed lovers at that, it gives these teenagers the depth that makes the book not just about their love but also their friendship and their bond, the things they like and the things they hate. Each character has some little quirk about them so that you can’t help but get fond of them. Especially the main character Hazel is something completely different from usual love-sick teenage girls portrayed in books and media. She’s smart and witty and overall so very lovable. She’s the kind of female character that I can and want to identify with.

All in all, The Fault In Our Stars is a beautiful and breath-taking book. It’s a whole experience with bot laughter and tears, it’s a book that demands to be read again many times to make sure it’s understood through and through. It’s the kind of book that you don’t want to go around shoving at everybody’s faces, but rather pick out people that you know will be able to appreciate it in a way it deserves, and then try your best to get them read it.