John Green’s wonderful yet tragic best-selling novel The Fault in Our Stars tells a heart-wrenching story of two teenage cancer patients who fall in love. Augustus Waters and Hazel Lancaster live in the ordinary city of Indianapolis, where they both attend a support group for cancer patients. Falling in love at first sight, the two are inseparable until Augustus’s cancer comes out of remission, turning Hazel’s world upside. This is one of the best young-adult fiction novels of the year because it keeps readers on the edge of their seat, uses themes to teach real life lessons, and uses a realistic point of view instead of the cliché happy ending of most books. The novel starts off with a young 16-year-old girl named Hazel with thyroid cancer that has spread to her lungs. She serves as the witty narrator and makes death seem like nothing to be afraid of. Augustus Waters, a 17-year-old formally diagnosed with Osteosarcoma, is in remission but has lost a leg due to his cancer. From the beginning, John Green makes readers feel suspenseful as to when or if Hazel is going to die and break Augustus’s heart. But when Augustus goes back into remission, a twist is added to the story and Hazel becomes the healthier partner in their relationship. Hazel and Augustus’s love is put to the test as Augustus’s health deteriorates more and more each day. Readers are sitting on the edge of their seats, as they must wait to see what the fate of this courageous couple will be. The Fault in Our Stars also uses many themes in order to teach life lessons to young-adults reading this book. For example, John Green shows that love conquers all things, even cancer and death. Although Augustus ends up facing death, Hazel’s love for him is true and it will ne... ... middle of paper ... ...sing a loved one is actually like without sugar coating it. After reading The Fault in Our Stars, I personally had a different perspective on life, death, and living in the moment. This book teaches readers to live fully and in the present, because you never know how much time you really have left. This novel also taught me that love can overpower anything, and sometimes it can even make you stronger in order to make another person happy. Hazel Lancaster and Augustus Water’s love is one of the most powerful romances I have ever read about. They are a good example of what true love really is and this book was extremely heartwarming to read. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has a desire to read a beautiful yet tragic romance much different than any other typical love story. Works Cited Green, John. The Fault in Our Stars. New York: Dutton, 2012. Print.
James McBride ends the book on a high note leaving the conspicuous notion of the truth of life’s difficulties and the truth that things can get better. He says it in his own words and I quote, “This isn’t the movies; this is the real world…Love is unstoppable. It is our greatest weapon, a natural force, created by God.” (292) The book seems to be a collection of their lives’ tribulations all leading up to the impact of the combination of two in success, the success of a successful family and the finding of their selves.
Many hearts are drawn to history's greatest love stories, such as Romeo and Juliet, Bonnie and Clyde, and Helen and Paris to name a few. One could argue that humanity’s way of finding happiness is to seek love. Pure, unadulterated love is one of the hardest feelings to acquire, but when one does, they’d do anything to keep it. Through Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and his characters, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, readers discover that this innate desire to be accepted and loved is both our most fatal flaw and our greatest virtue.
The book, Into the wild, takes us into the world of a young man named Christopher Johnson McCandless. He travelled across the western United States from 1990 to 1992, and on April 28, 1992, he started his last adventure and walked into the wilds of Alaska. About 112 days later, he died of starvation. Unsurprisingly, public opinion polarized on his behavior. Some may admire his courage and noble ideals, though some regard him as an idiotic and arrogant narcissist. Although he died on his way to find the truth and back to nature, I believe that Chris McCandless should be considered as a hero, but I cannot completely approve of all his behaviors.
... loss of loved ones like Junior in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and Andi in Revolution or faced your own inevitable passing like Hazel Grace in The Fault in Our Stars, you are not alone. In confronting and facing death, these characters learn that death is merely a small part of living. It is an element of the human experience. To return to the wise words of the late Steve Jobs, “Almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important…There is no reason not to follow your heart.” Living is the adventure. In facing their fears and sadness, these characters learn how to be courageous, how to hope, how to love, and how to live. Join them on their journeys by checking out one of the spotlighted books at your local library.
Love, love, love; the only thing everybody talks about. Every movie, every series, every story talks about how two people fall in love and live happily ever after. All stories get to the conclusion that the love the couple shared was unique and that the two lovers matched perfectly together. But what happens when two lovers do not belong to the same social class? What happens when they don’t share common things they like? Are they not meant to be? “In love everything is possible”, someone once said. When someone is in love, he/she would make everything that he/she cans to make his/her lover happy and keep him/her by their side forever. F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century, depicts a love story in his novel The Great Gatsby and shows how love can change a person. Gatsby, the man from which the story takes its name, fell in love with Daisy when he was young officer just before going to war. As the story goes on, he falls more and more in love with her, but he loses her to a richer man. Gatsby’s love for Daisy
The Fault In Our Stars is a novel by author John Green. The story followed the leading character, Hazel Grace Lancaster, as the she battled cancer. Not simply did Hazel want to live the normal life of a 16-year-old girl, but she additionally struggled with what it would probably be like for her parents after she passed away. While Hazel attended a church support class for cancer survivors, she met a boy that was one year older than her, Augustus Waters. While Augustus had a kind of cancer that caused him to lose his leg in addition to wear a prosthetic, it also had a survival rate that was much higher compared to Hazel's.
When was the last time you felt certain of your impending future? For cancer survivor, Hazel, the answer is never. In The Fault in Our Stars, sixteen year old Hazel lives with cancer and attends a support group where she meets Augustus, another young cancer survivor who changes her outlook on the world forever. He takes Hazel on an adventure of love, friendship, and pain, and together they yearn to have authority over their uncontrollable fates. Isaac, a blind teenager, and Hazel’s mom also play significant roles in her life. Similarly, in Of Mice and Men, George and Lennie strengthen their friendship through love and suffering, and they learn that humans have some control over their end destination. At the ranch they work at, Lennie and George have to choose how they want their lives to turn out, which directly impacts the choices they will make regarding the future. While John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars and John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men both establish motifs of friendship, games, and hands, they convey different universal ideas about humanity. In particular, Green suggests that humans cannot always manipulate every situation, while Steinbeck focuses on the ideas that men often have a choice in their destinies.
Leo Gursky, the author of the book within Krauss’s book, has many losses to deal with. He has lost his one love, Alma Mereminsky; his son, Isaac; his book, part of his heart, and himself. Leo Gursky fell in love with Alma Mereminsky when he was only ten years old. They grew up together in love, but a day came when Alma took the opportunity to move to America. When Leo finally made it to America, Alma was committed to another man, and the “boy who promised he’d never fall in love with another girl as long as he lived kept his promise… He couldn’t help it” (Krauss 13). Leo lived a wishful, but distant, life; he remained obsessed with his hopeless love until the day he died. At the peak of his love for Alma as a young man, Leo also experienced the loss of his family due to the holocaust. Leo Gursky had an undying love for Alma and an interpersonal love for his family, both of which became lost and hopeless when he was a young man.
The character Augustus strives to not allow the cancer become his identity, rather to be remembered for something bigger than his illness. Augustus changes a lot from when he is first introduced at the beginning of the book till the final chapters before his death. When Hazel Grace first meets Augustus Waters at the support group she describes him as an attractive, strong and normal boy. It’s later during support group she finds out that he Augustus, once suffered from cancer and is now in remission. He attends the support group only as a companion for his friend Isaac who is a few days away from losing his eyesight. As the support group discussions go on, Augustus is asked what his fears are and he replies “Oblivion” (Green, 12) Augustus wants his life to mean more, rather than to just be forgotten when he dies. After each support group meeting a prayer is said with the list of all the members who have passed away added at the end. “And we remember in our hearts those whom we knew and loved who have gone home to you; Maria and ...
There exists no power as inexplicable as that of love. Love cannot be described in a traditional fashion; it is something that must be experienced in order for one to truly grasp its full enormity. It is the one emotion that can lead human beings to perform acts they are not usually capable of and to make sacrifices with no thought of the outcome or repercussions. Though love is full of unanswered questions and indescribable emotions, one of the most mystifying aspects of love is its timeless nature. Love is the one emotion, unlike superficial sentiments such as lust or jealousy, which can survive for years, or even generations. In the novel The Gargoyle, the author, Andrew Davidson, explores the idea of eternal love between two people, a union that spans over centuries spent both together and apart. Davidson, through the use of flashbacks, intricate plot development and foreshadowing, and dynamic characterization, creates a story that challenges the reader’s preconceived notions regarding whether eternal love can survive even when time’s inevitable grasp separates the individuals in question.
Death has a way of changing people, whether it is the passing of someone close to you or coming to terms with your own mortality, no one remains the same after dealing with death. Some people mourn in the face or death, while others are re-born and enlightened. In the novel The Fault In Our Stars by John Green, we are introduced to two adolescents that have faced death and gained different perspectives on life after doing so. When facing death, whether you’re own or someone you love, there are two types of reactions, two types of people, the “Augustus’s” and the “Hazel Grace’s”. After losing his leg, Augustus Waters decided that he wanted to make his mark on the world before he died, he was terrified of dying and feared oblivion more than anything but it was that very fear that compelled him to live the most fulfilling life possible, “I decided long ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence”(Green 11). Instead of wallowing in misery over having cancer, Gus wanted to enjoy life; he found beauty in everything, especially Hazel Grace. He lived his life through metaphors; he revolved many of his beliefs and actions around metaphors, one of his favorites was, “you put the killing thing in your mouth, but you don’t give it the power to kill you”(Green 13). I think he liked this metaphor and having a cigarette dangle between his lips so much, because unlike his cancer, which he had no control over, he could control whether or not he lit the cigarette. It made him feel like his destiny was in his own hands and under his control. Gus’s experience with death made him a more positive person, a “better” and inspirational person; he wanted to “drink stars” and live his life questioning everything. “While...
Many argue that F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is an example of the "great American love story", but it is not. The Great Gatsby is not a tale about perfect love; it is a tale of love and lust corrupting individuals in their lives, and of an American dream that is never fulfilled. Throughout the story, we follow multiple relationships, but focus is on the single relationship between Gatsby and Daisy. This relationship, however, fails to fulfill many requirements that would make it a true love story, and thus, while some hardship is to be expected, this relationship encounters an excessive amount. To determine if The Great Gatsby is a "great American love story", it is necessary to examine what this ideal actually is, as well as how Gatsby and Daisy fit into the mold, and it quickly becomes apparent that they do not.
“I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul and to me, this has always been enough.” That is a quote from The Notebook, a famous book written by Nicholas Sparks in 1996. This quotation inspires people to have faith that love is the only thing in the world that they need. They need not have prosperity or fame. They simply need an individual to love with all their hearts for all eternity. The world is a place where love seems to somehow find its way through in the most difficult of times. Nicholas Sparks is a dedicated author, father, husband, and donor who sees that clearly and demonstrates that in his novels. To understand the genuine significance of Nicholas Sparks and his novels, one must know his background, the truth about what the critics think about his novels and his influence on today’s society.
When we find a love interest and have an opportunity to commit to him or her, we usually do, not noting the consequences we may face by doing so. The first few times around, however, the outcome is usually not the one we had expected and hoped for. Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God portray two young women on their trek to find the perfect love. Even though Carrie Meeber and Janie Crawford have almost nothing in common, they both shared the impact of the same consequences. Carrie and Janie show how people of countless numbers of backgrounds can share the same experiences and consequences through their journey of love.
Victor Hugo once said, “The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” Whether in Shakespeare’s tragic play about lovers doomed by fate, Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s sonnet describing love, “Sonnet 116”, or O. Henry’s age old The Gift of the Magi, love motivates the characters and authors to make decisions that have a weighty impact on their lives. Throughout these works of literature, authors use love’s power to drive the plot forward to create good events within the characters’ lives. Love is a force for good because it makes people willing to forgive each other, it brings the best out of people in bad situations, and it