Book Review: The Fault in Our Stars

Jasmine and I first watched the movie The Fault in Our Stars. Then we listened to it on CD.

The basic story:

From IMBD "Hazel and Augustus are two teenagers who share an acerbic wit, a disdain for the conventional, and a love that sweeps them on a journey. Their relationship is all the more miraculous, given that Hazel's other constant companion is an oxygen tank, Gus jokes about his prosthetic leg, and they meet and fall in love at a cancer support group." 

Hazel Grace Lancaster, a 17-year-old with cancer, reluctantly visits a cancer support group at her mother's insistence. Her trusty portable oxygen tank goes with her. At the meeting she meets August Waters, a teen with one leg and a unique outlook on life. The two hit it off, and Hazel shares her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction with Augustus. He in turn gives her his favorite book to read--The Price of Dawn, a shoot 'em up book with a high body count.

Hazel shares that An Imperial Afflication is the only novel about cancer that describes her own life. She is frustrating that author, Peter Van Houten, ends the novel mid sentence denying the readers closure.

Since she used up the special wish granted to terminally ill children to visit Disney when she was 12, Augustus uses his wish to take himself  and Hazel to Amsterdam to meet the author of An Imperial Afflication. When the meeting is less than stellar, Augustus refuses to let Hazel think she wasted his trip.

Once home, things take a turn for the worse for Augustus whose cancer has returned. And we find out, as Augusts says, "Life in not a wish granting factory." 

There are a lot of differences between the movie and the book. One of the biggest ones is that in the movie, while you get to see what a miserable excuse for a human author Peter Van Houten is, in the book you find out that the main character in his book was named for his daughter who died of cancer when she was 8. The book was an attempt reconcile himself with her death.

The book gives more backstory and insight to the main characters' motivations and thoughts, but it also has much more crude language and swearing than the movie.


Because they say it better than I do, I am including some of Plugged In Online's review. It's long, but it's worth reading. You can read the whole thing HERE

POSITIVE ELEMENTS

Death hangs over The Fault in Our Stars like the stars themselves, permeating every character and every interaction. And yet in the midst of mortality we see at least a sliver of something alive. Even in pain, hope can be found, we're told. Even in disappointment, meaning comes.

Loving someone, truly, through severe sickness, isn't easy. We see others fail under the pressure. But no matter what circumstances bring, Gus and Hazel care for each other throughout, often giving something of themselves in the process.

They're both heroic characters in their own ways, facing disease and circumstance with as much grace and courage as they can muster. Hazel's last few years have been something of a living sacrifice as she tries to cushion the blow of the inevitable pain that's coming for her parents. Gus wants to live a life of meaning—one filled with adventure and importance, so that when he does go, he's known and loved by millions.

There's a little merit in both of those strategies. But when Gus and Hazel get together, they get a better sense of what the beauty of life is really about. Hazel moves beyond responsibility and finds joy in her difficult life. And when she learns that, should she die, her parents won't die with her, that they're making plans for a life without her, she treats it as the best of gifts: the idea that she won't necessarily destroy everyone around her. And Gus, through Hazel, comes to understand that it's not so critical to be loved by throngs, as long as you've loved by and have changed the lives of a few. Or even just one.

Hazel finds solace while visiting the house of Anne Frank, the diary-writing Jewish girl killed in the Nazi Holocaust. "Where there is hope, there is life," we hear Anne's words playing in the background. "Think of all the beauty in everything around you. And be happy."

Unlike most teenage love stories, parents come across pretty well here. While Hazel and her folks have their moments of tension, there's no question about how much they love one another.

SPIRITUAL CONTENT

Hazel's support group takes place in the basement of an Episcopal church and is led by a cancer survivor who's a fervent—and, in Hazel's eyes, goofy—Christian. He sings a song that includes the words, "Christ is your friend and He'll be there to the end." And he rolls out a carpet depicting the Savior, telling participants standing on it that they're "literally in the heart of Jesus." As the story proceeds, then, the idea of literally being in the heart of Jesus, when they're literally in a church basement, is sometimes mocked.

Christianity is treated more reverentially during a funeral, wherein a priest reads Psalm 23 and people say a prayer. (Still, a much-loathed antagonist crashes the funeral and lets loose a quip about having to "fake pray.")

Both Hazel and Gus think a lot about what might come after death. Gus fears oblivion in this life while hanging on to a belief in at least some sort of afterlife, saying he wants to crash his own funeral as a ghost. Hazel's more cynical, telling Gus she doesn't believe in angels but she may believe in God, and while she'd like to believe in an afterlife she'd need more proof first. Someone suggests that her life has no meaning and her disease is a "failed experiment in mutation."

SEXUAL CONTENT

Eighteen-year-old Gus and 17-year-old Hazel are attracted to each other from the beginning. And while Hazel tries to keep him at arm's length for a while, their platonic relationship goes kablooey in Amsterdam. The two share a tender kiss in Anne Frank's house. Then they tumble into Gus' hotel room and have sex.

The scene shows Hazel and Gus taking off each other's shirts, and she undoes her bra. (We see her from the back.) They caress and kiss as they give in to their passion. Afterwards, both are seen mostly naked, with the sheet covering only the most critical body parts. And it's worth noting that much is made of Gus' previously virginal "condition" ... and that this union is seen as the perfect end to it. The couple cuddles and kisses elsewhere.

Gus' friend Isaac makes out with his girlfriend in a parking lot, and we see him kneading her (clothed) breast. Later, Isaac, who has lost both eyes to cancer, comments on the size of another girl's breasts. "I'm blind, but I'm not that blind," he says.

CRUDE OR PROFANE LANGUAGE

One very forceful f-word is used as a sexually derived insult. Also, a half-dozen s-words and a smattering of other bad words, including "a‑‑," "b‑‑ch," "b‑‑tard" and "h‑‑‑." God's name is used as an expletive about 30 times, twice paired with "d‑‑n."

CONCLUSION

"Apparently, the world is not a wish-granting factory," Gus says sadly.

It's a truth we all know. Even we Christians, whom the movie portrays as fairly naive, see that all too well. We wish it was. We want our happily ever after endings. But we know that happiness on earth is fickle and fleeting.

In The Fault in Our Stars (based on John Green's best-selling young adult novel) we find, indeed, that the stars haven't been especially kind to these two lovers. They don't have the time we'd wish for them—time to get jobs and have kids, to grow up and grow old. They've been given a finite number of days together—and even those days are filled with the looming problems and anxiety that cancer inevitably brings. And whenever it seems like something wonderful might finally happen, it goes awry. Each star they cling to, including each other, has a fault inside—a scratch, a split.

But even given such faulty stars, the two find joy and fulfillment. They have each other. They're loved. They live. Yes, maybe their days are built on borrowed time, but it's better than no time, and Hazel confesses that she's "grateful for our little infinity."

"You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world," Hazel says. "but you do get to choose who hurts you." That's a strangely powerful statement, I think.

Sadly, one fault Hazel and Gus share is that they don't always make the wisest of choices. They sleep together. And they prefer to see themselves as pawns of the stars, not beloved by those stars' Creator.

This isn't an anti-Christian film, exactly—just spiritually uncertain. Nor is it saturated in sex or depravity. This isn't a bad movie, really. In many ways, it's quite good.

But here's the thing: Because it is quite good—a persuasive, emotional story with strong, positive messages about sacrifice, hard truths and true love—the bad stuff can come off as more persuasive than usual. It's harder to see a loving God yourself when the characters you grow to care about can't, or won't. It's harder to object to premarital sex while weepily watching Hazel and Gus—teens who might never get the chance to ever have sex again—get so much pleasure and fulfillment from it.

The Fault in Our Stars is, I suppose, a little like its title. For all its sparkly power, it has scratches and splits. We know immediately when a movie like Noah drifts away from its moorings. But it's hard to see a film with crystal-clear eyes when you're always dabbing them with a Kleenex.

My final thoughts are these: It's a good story which I would have enjoyed a lot more if there had been less crude and profane language. If there is one thing John Green excels at in his books it is telling a true to life story with an abundance of insight and crude language. I think it would have been more powerful if it had a stronger spiritual emphasis--hope of heaven. But it is not a Christian book. 

I would proceed with caution when reading the book or watching the movie. I wouldn't recommend it for anyway under 13 or 14 years old.

My challenge to myself and other Christian authors is to write books that are equally insightful and engaging, but which also provide spiritual guidance and insights. We need more books that weave in faith elements without cramming it down the reader's throats. A book should have an engaging story, not a thinly disguised sermon. It should offer hope to the reader and send them on a God search. Let's build up the CBA market with books that are as widely read as The Fault in Our Stars and the others I've reviewed on this blog.
Be genuine
Be real
Be connected
Write your best story

These are my thoughts. Feel free to add yours in the comment section.
Some of the fun of The Fault in Our Stars was Gus and Hazel's quotes. Who can forget:

Favorite quotes HERE
Read my other reviews
All the Bright Places
13 Reasons Why
The Hunger Games (Bryan Davis)