Why do so many young adults and not-so-young adults read John Green's books one after the other? And, perhaps a more intriguing question, why does he write so many books that, from what I hear, are very similar to each other? See, for example, the blog of The Little Engine that Could that complains, “A common complaint about John Green is that his characters are all the same: nerdy guy plus awesome girl.”
Well, the Fault in Our Stars is my first introduction to Green's fiction, and, like most readers, I find it compelling: the dialogue rings true as do the characters who speak it. (Well, perhaps the parents seem a bit too hip in their language and too understanding of teenagers, but that observation might arise from my own experiences as a parent, one who occasionally had bad moods, would be too busy to listen to her kids, and even, I regret to say, a bit too impatient to respond with such empathy to her kids' dramas. But, then again, I did not have children dying with cancer. So, maybe Green offers us standards of behavior for such situations.)
All that aside, I return to the compelling story, not dissimilar to Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers in Romeo and Juliet. Even 7th graders who have not yet read the play know when they open the pages that R and J are doomed. Similarly, a few sentences into FIOS, we suspect that, through no "fault" of their own, a HEA is not "in the stars" for Hazel and Augustus either. (Spoiler ahead!) And, for that matter, neither does it end HFN (happily for now), In fact, the story causes us to consider the meaning and transience of "happy," a rather serious issue for people of all ages. Even the title warns us that tragedy is in store for the characters, but perhaps that knowledge invites us into the book--maybe that is what we seek: living with the characters the existential questions of "what is the meaning of life?" and "what is the point of what we do?"
I'm commenting here only up through Chapter 4, so I'll conclude my remarks with Augustus's profound statement that concludes that chapter: "That's the thing about pain. . . . . It demands to be felt."
Perhaps that statement resonates with the young and the less young because our culture encourages us to seek ways to avoid pain before we feel it: anti-depressants, retail therapy, and maybe, too, the HEA's of popular romance that dominate the book market.
Well, the Fault in Our Stars is my first introduction to Green's fiction, and, like most readers, I find it compelling: the dialogue rings true as do the characters who speak it. (Well, perhaps the parents seem a bit too hip in their language and too understanding of teenagers, but that observation might arise from my own experiences as a parent, one who occasionally had bad moods, would be too busy to listen to her kids, and even, I regret to say, a bit too impatient to respond with such empathy to her kids' dramas. But, then again, I did not have children dying with cancer. So, maybe Green offers us standards of behavior for such situations.)
All that aside, I return to the compelling story, not dissimilar to Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers in Romeo and Juliet. Even 7th graders who have not yet read the play know when they open the pages that R and J are doomed. Similarly, a few sentences into FIOS, we suspect that, through no "fault" of their own, a HEA is not "in the stars" for Hazel and Augustus either. (Spoiler ahead!) And, for that matter, neither does it end HFN (happily for now), In fact, the story causes us to consider the meaning and transience of "happy," a rather serious issue for people of all ages. Even the title warns us that tragedy is in store for the characters, but perhaps that knowledge invites us into the book--maybe that is what we seek: living with the characters the existential questions of "what is the meaning of life?" and "what is the point of what we do?"
I'm commenting here only up through Chapter 4, so I'll conclude my remarks with Augustus's profound statement that concludes that chapter: "That's the thing about pain. . . . . It demands to be felt."
Perhaps that statement resonates with the young and the less young because our culture encourages us to seek ways to avoid pain before we feel it: anti-depressants, retail therapy, and maybe, too, the HEA's of popular romance that dominate the book market.