The main character has cancer. DON'T GIVE UP ON IT JUST YET. I promise, the book is wonderful. Hazel, the main character, falls in love with a wonderful (cancer-free amputee) boy she meets at support group. The story tells of their amazing, miraculous love that cannot be penetrated by anything, even cancer. Through this perfect love, they are healed. I won't give any more away, simply because YOU NEED TO READ THIS BOOK. You'll like it; I promise.
However, I will share some of my favorite quotes :)
I kept finding myself reading and taking pictures of the pages on which perfect quotes were written. I used to think that only my boyfriend could make my heart melt... because he's pretty great with words;) BUT John Green's way with words is seriously amazing to me. I think I have a scholastic crush on him.
"My thoughts are starts I cannot fathom into constellations."
"That's the thing about pain... it demands to be felt."
"What a slut time is. She screws everybody."
"You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world... but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices."
"Without pain, how could we know joy?"
"I believe the universe wants to be noticed.I think the universe is improbably biased toward the consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it- or my observation of it- is temporary?"
"Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin."
"There is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars."
There are seriously countless others.
Okay, this is the last one. It's my favorite.
"I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only Earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you."
First, how perfect is that? If you've never felt this undeniable, soul-consuming love... this is exactly what it's like. Every time I read this quote, it's hard for me to breathe. My heart beats faster, and I'm filled with the overwhelming notion of this kind of love. I was in a long term relationship, and I thought I was in this kind of love. We've all been there, right? Some of us haven't... your time will come, I'm sure. You think you're in love. You think that this significant other is your world, your everything... but he's not; she's not. Your world comes crashing down, faster and harder than you ever thought possible. You run off a cliff, and there's no one there to catch you. You feel alone, cheated, removed; you feel unloved. That's the worst feeling ever. If you haven't felt like that, count yourself lucky. It's no fun. BUT, for those of you who HAVE felt like that, you know what I mean. It sucks. Period.
If you feel like that right now,... calm down. It's okay. Breathe.
I have good news. If it didn't work out, for whatever reason, it wasn't this kind of love. It wasn't this crazy love. I can't explain things as well as I think them. My eloquence falls short of conveying what I actually mean when I say- have hope. There will come a day when you meet your soul mate. And you will know. You'll just know. That's completely cliche, right? Sorry, but it's the truth. Shakespeare agrees with me: "When I saw you, I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew." It's the craziest thing. It's wonderful, and it's exactly what John Green calls "a shout into the void". No one can possibly understand it but you.
God placed this book in my hands right as I was beginning to finally accept that my reality was exactly that... reality.
On Easter Sunday, just a couple of months ago, I met up with an old acquaintance. He was never really a friend, but he was the brother to one of my past (a LONG time ago... actually, my very first boyfriend... weird, right?) boyfriends. We had been texting and what not (you know how it goes) for six days. He kept asking me to meet up with him and "catch up", but I kept gently refusing. I had braces (EW!) at the time, and I really didn't want him to see me with them... kind of silly, now that I think about it. So, I told him that we could finally hang out on Tuesday (two days after Easter Sunday)... well, that didn't work out. Somehow, he convinced me to go over to his house after family shenanigans on Easter. I met him at a grocery store, because he was picking up a few things before heading back to his house (which is in the middle of no where basically), and I planned to follow him home.
We hugged. He smiled. I blushed. The rest is history.
We talked for hours- all night. It was like I was meeting my best friend for the first time. He told me his biggest secrets, and I told him mine. We talked about the future, like we had been dating for years. We kept shaking our heads and saying, "crazy". That's the only word to describe how we felt. The next day, we hung out again. And the next day. And the next day. Oh, and I got my braces off the third day we saw each other, but we had already kissed before then, so my plan kind of flew out the window.
Out of all the billions of people in the world, it was him... all along. It was him. We both knew it.
People think we're crazy, I'm sure. We are. In fact, he gave me a diamond (crazy...) ring that has "crazy love" inscribed on the inside. There's no other way to explain it.
Okay, I kind of got a little side-tracked from the book.... not really though. I'm just sharing my personal experience and response to John green's beautiful work of art. READ IT! You'll understand; I promise.
Second, I love the syntax of this quote. Though it's obviously not grammatically correct, it's perfect. If you know me at all, you know I'm a bit of a "grammar Nazi". However, I am also a strong believer in an author's effective use of syntax when he or she is trying to convey a particular point. In this instance, John Green is giving Augustus the ability to show Hazel how deeply he truly loves her. By utilizing run on sentences and various comma splices, the reader is able to read this quotes as if it was spoken. Augustus is pouring his undying love out for all of the world (his world) to see. He wants nothing more than to tell Hazel the truth- he loves her. He knows it's crazy. he knows it doesn't make any sense. He loves her all the same. It's the kind of love one cannot understand unless he or she has felt it.
Third, the imagery of this quote is insane. It's crazy. I can paint the words in my mind, so that I imagine the love being spilled out in the emptiness of the world, the darkness, the void. I've never seen a void, though. I've felt a void... I've felt emptiness. Somehow, though, I am able to SEE it. Can't you? Can't you see the character shouting into the bottomless void? Isn't it amazing? Nothing in the world matters except for this all-consuming love. There will be an end to this world. One day, the fiery rays of the relentless, all-consuming sun will devour the Earth. It doesn't matter. Love is real. It's here.
John Green does an excellent job in capturing the honest, pure, and raw emotion of love. Not only that, he paints a vivid picture of what it truly means to be in love. This book is one that I would recommend to ALL readers who have ever wanted to feel the "real thing".
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