Nut Ink. Mini reviews of texts old and new. No fuss. No plot spoilers. No adverts. Occasional competency.

Monday, June 11, 2012

The Fault in Our Stars (2012)

Author: John Green  |  Page Count: 313

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.

I’m too old to say that I want to be like John Green when I grow up. Disturbing as it is, I’m already grown up. So, I want to be like John Green, right now. In his case, being categorized as a "Teen" or "Young Adult" author is a double-edged sword. It’s absolutely wonderful for teens themselves as Green never condescends, never holds back, never lies. On the other hand, it’s disheartening to think that some adults will never read his books because of that label.

John is unfathomably gifted in spinning tales of love and life that are throroughly genuine because they aren’t perfect. They are flawed, and momentary—built specifically of moments fleeting to those not personally experiencing them. Somehow, he is able to make universal truths feel achingly personal.

Every revelation his characters experience feels fresh. They are not constructed of platitudes and maxims. In fact, said characters often deride them directly and swiftly in the course of their development. Hazel and Augustus burn through their fair share in the Fault in Our Stars, as they are often chokingly surrounded by them in their lives as ‘Cancer kids.’ Together they work through their own feelings about being bereft of certain futures while struggling with their impact on everyone around them. Along the way they bond over an incomplete book which leads them halfway around the world in search of its reclusive author, and to the understanding of what it truly means to finish a book.

At the end of the day, what they learn and experience is just as relevant to those of us with less tenuous futures as it is to them. Of course, as John points out, that’s an important facet of all fiction. Live and love, in the face of death, and in the face of life.

5 Regretlessly pulled pins out of 5

Nutted by NEG

1 comment:

Dr Faustus said...

It's gone back on the shelf with all the other books, but it's not like all the other books.

5 simple pleasures of existence out of 5