When I decided to read The Fault in Our Stars, I was coming off a reading hiatus. You know that empty space between books that no book seems capable of filling? I was stuck there in the thick of the reading hiatus malaise. Then, thanks to an Entertainment Weekly subscription I received for Christmas, I read there was a movie coming out based on the Young Adult book, The Fault in Our Stars. And of course there was one of those BuzzFeed lists that told me what I should read before the movie comes along. One can argue that reading a book first can ruin a film experience, but more often than not I find that having read the book enhances my viewing pleasure, because I know more of the story than the medium of film can portray.
While the book falls into the Young Adult genre, the intellectual complexity of the novel really surprised me. John Green is not a man who writes lightly. There's nothing I love more than being completely surprised by a story. References to Kierkegaard, T.S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams elevates this epic cancer romance. An epic cancer romance sounds just how it feels while reading it. And if you should endeavor to take this story on then you should know that it possesses the capacity to make you laugh and cry within a three page spread.
