by Mary Hilliard, photos by Jessie Culver
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In author John Green’s “The Fault in Our Stars”, teenager Hazel Lancaster adores the book, “An Imperial Affliction” by fictional author Peter Vanhouten. “Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book,” Lancaster says.
Ironically, this quote could be, in many STA students’ eyes, used to describe “The Fault in Our Stars”. According to freshman Marin Brown, the book is “perfect” and “sweet and funny and cute.”
“The Fault in Our Stars” tells the story of teenage cancer patients, Lancaster and Augustus Waters. Hazel has “lungs that suck at being lungs” and meets Augustus, who lost his leg to osteosarcoma, at a cancer support group.
“[‘The Fault in Our Stars’] just not the typical love story…[the main characters] have cancer, it’s not perfect, it’s not just another teenage book,” freshman Rachel Alexander said.
Sophomore Maddie Summers said that she would reccomend the book to anyone.
“Everyone who can read should read it,” Summers said.
The New York Times bestseller has taken the nation, and STA, by storm, earning number one spots on the reading lists of TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today.
According to Brown, The Fault in Our Stars became popular because it is not a traditional love story.
“It’s not like teenagers going and having a summer romance,” Alexander said.
However, the book does not appeal to everyone. Sophomore Mary Grace Campbell said she found the book “predictable.”
“I feel like I’ve heard the story before,” Cambell said. “I thought it was predictable and like a sappy teen romance.”
But Campbell, along with Summers, Brown and Alexander, did cry after reading the book.
“I cried at least four times while reading the book,” Summers said.
But according to Alexander, The Fault in Our Stars is not “just another cancer book.”
“[Lancaster and Waters] never really complain about how bad their life is, they just kind of go on,” Alexander said.
According to Summers, her favorite part of the book is Waters’ attitude towards cancer.
“It wasn’t that [Waters] was super positive, but he accepted [having cancer] and he wasn’t angry and he just had a good attitude going about it,” Summers said. “He was just like ‘this is my life, this is what i have to do’. “[Waters] is the love of my life.”
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