Words: 1806
The Fault In Our Stars, John Green was set in Indianapolis around the year 2012. The main character Hazel Grace struggles with stage 4 thyroid cancer which is affe cting her lungs. The other main character is Augustus Waters who had previously struggled wi th osteosarcoma; a bone tumor that is malignant and spreads rapidly in teenagers. The two meet at a cancer group, which Hazel is very resistant to going to, and immediately begin to be friends nd communicate regularly.
Augustus’s cancer is in remission but he is there to support his frien d Isaac who has a tumor in the only eye that he still has. After one Of the group sessions, Augustus approaches Hazel and invites her 0 ver to his house to watch a movie and talk about their cancer. There they learn much a bout each other, Hazel learns that Augustus had to have his leg removed because of the tumor that he had on it. As Augustus bring Hazel home that night, they agree to read each others favo rite book; Augustus had chosen The price of Dawn and Hazel had picked An Imperial Affliction.
Hazel explains to Augustus that the girl in her favorite book has the same type of cancer as she does, it is the only book she has read about the same type of cancer that she had. She also says that the author, Peter Van Houten, fled to Amsterdam after the novel was written and had not been heard from since. A few days after Augustus had read the book, he tells Hazel that he had track ed down Van Houten’s assistant and had talked to her through email. Hazel becomes v ery excited and immediately begins to think of any questions she may have for Van Houten a out how the book ended.
After Augustus had sent them out, he gets an email back saying that t hose questions could only be answered in person and if she was ever in Amsterdam she could stop by. Hearing this, Augustus finds a charity that grants wishes to kids with cancer; unfortunately, Hazel had already Literary Assignment 2; 3 used hers to go to Disneyland when she was little. Augustus then decides to u se his wish to take both of them to Amsterdam to ask Van Houten all of the questions that they h ave about this book.
This is when Hazel realizes that she does love him but is afraid of what ould happen to him after she died; she calls herself a grenade. Shortly after this day, Hazel goes to the ICU because her lungs had filled with fluid and her doctors will not clear her to go to Amsterdam with AUgUStUS. Luckily for H azel, one of the doctors on her case had convinced her parents that, even though she is sick, Hazel should be allowed to live her life and travel. So, they go to Amsterdam where they meet Van Houten who, to their surprise, was not a brilliant writer but a mean, violent drunk who refu ses to answer any of Hazel’s questions.
They both leave very disappointed but they take a tour o Anne Franks house where Hazel had difficulty going up and down the stairs due to her can cer. The next day, Augustus tells Hazel that while she was in the ICU he had a bod y scan that showed his cancer had spread all over his body; she now realizes that August us is the grenade. As Augustus gets sicker, he tells Hazel and Isaac to each write the speeches th at they will read at his funeral and that he is having a pre funeral. In her speech, hazel admits tha t she loves Augustus and adds a line from Van Houten’s book about life and infinities.
Eig ht days after the re funeral, Augustus dies leaving Hazel devastated in the destruction that he had done to her heart. At Augustus’s funeral, Hazel is shocked to see that Van Houten had showed u p to apologize to her and Augustus for ruining the trip to Amsterdam. He also ema ils Hazel a letter that Augustus had wrote that said how much he loved her and that he hoped she was happy for Literary Assignment 2; 4 allowing him to hurt her the way she did. He states that he did not regret his a ctions and hoped that she liked her choices also; the book concludes with Hazel saying “l do Au gustus, I do”.
Interpreting (Question 2): Throughout the book, many events take the story to places that were unexpe cted and sometimes very traumatic for the characters. This made their attitudes chang e throughout the story on many different things such as Hazel Grace with the grenade referenc e and Augustus’s personality changing at the end Of the book. During the book, Hazel had refer red to herself as “a grenade and at some point (she is) going to blow up and (she) would like to m inimize the casualties” (p. 99). She says this because she does not want to hurt Augustus a nd is worried about hat would happen to him if she died.
During the trip to Amsterdam, when A ugustus tells Hazel about his cancer coming back and being spread throughout his body, she real izes that he is the grenade. She worries about what will happen to her once he dies; the role is c ompletely changed around. Augustus also has a change of personality throughout the book, he begins as a very fun and caring person and ends very tired and depressed. Hazel had described hi m as having a crooked smile, eyes that were so pretty they were hard to look at, and a perso nality that could brighten everyones day.
When they were in Amsterdam, Augustus had told H azel about his cancer which Hazel responded to with saying he could battle cancer just as sh e was. Instead of replying with a joke, as the reader had thought he would, he replied with ” My cancer is me. The tumors are made of me. They’re made of me as surely as my brain and my he art are made of me. Literary Assignment 2; 5 It is a civil war, Hazel Grace, with a predetermined winner. ” (p. 216). This is where his personality begins to shift, he begins to become depressed because his cance r is back, he begins to talk about death more than he usually would.
This was the major change in the character’s attitude in the book that threw me, and most likely others, into a whole new o utlook on him. Paraphrasing: (Last paragraph of the book) Within the last paragraph of the book, the feelings that Augustus had for Haze I are admitted to a fuller extent. The last paragraph is from the eulogy that August us had sent to Van Houten for Hazel’s death, something that Hazel was not supposed to hear unt il she had passed on. Van Houten had given it to her from Augustus in an email, perhaps he had done this because he wanted her to know how much he had loved her.
Augustus includes a phra se that has stuck with me in this letter “you do not get to choose if you get hurt in this world, 01 d man, but you do have some say in who hurts you” (p. 313). This phrase says that he did not wa nt to get hurt or hurt anyone, but it happened and he had chose Hazel to be a part of the proc ess. To me, this isa very meaningful thing for him to put in the letter that he had wrote, it is sayin g that even though he had hurt her he hopes that she does not regret choosing him to hurt her. He also comments on how beautiful, smart, and funny she is and how she ha d affected his ife while he had known her.
This is a way for him to help her with the grieving process, to assure her that he “likes (his) choices” in who hurt him. He wanted this letter t 0 be a Way for her to know how he actually felt and to have something to look back on when she missed him. It was also a nice way to return the favor of writing a eulogy like he had made her do for him. Synthesizing: (Question 9) Literary Assignment 2: 6 The movie for the book came out in 2014, but had many differences in the wa y that the story was played out. In the book, Hazel has a scene where she is at the mall a d a little girl comes up to her and asks about her oxygen tank.
She then takes the oxygen t ubing off of herself and allows the little girl to try it on and explains what it is doing. In the movie, they left this scene out which was a let down because it showed Hazel’s attitude towards ot hers when asked about her cancer. They also leave out the importance of Gus’ family, in the bo 0k his family was a very important part while in the movie they were not emphasized at all. They also left out a nonimportant but very humorous part of the book where Hazel’s om is obsessed with all of the minor holidays.
She would make funny jokes i n the book about little holidays such as christopher columbus day that would brighten Hazel’s d ay up a little bit. The movie also chose to put a lot of emphasis on the love story rather than th e medical parts of the book, leaving out lots of hospital scenes that were in the book. Evaluation: enjoyed reading this book a lot because of the medical things in it and also b ecause of the love story. The book shows a lot of the inside life of a cancer patient, it sh Ows much of what hey are thinking rather than what they are doing.
It showed the different har dships that Augustus had gone through after being diagnosed with cancer again; the depression an d the person that he had changed into. It told me a lot about what a cancer patient thinks about w hen they think of dying, had always wondered how people would take the news that they only have a few months to live. It also shows how the friends deal with the pain that they know is inevi table from the death of a friend.