John Green writes YA books that have the most amazing narrative voices. They are ridiculously easy to read, very realistic, and usually, on one hand, painfully sad while also amazingly funny. He writes both male and female voices very well and most of his books follow a formula wherein a ridiculously funny and handsome teenage boy meets an equally ridiculously witty and self-confident teenage girl and together they take on some grand adventure that one or the other simply has to do in order to find their meaning. This is the formula and I have to say I was growing tired of it, but he nailed it in this book. These kids can pull off the seeming more grown up bit because they have to. They can pull of the immediately in love bit because they have to. Their parents give them ridiculous amounts of leeway because they have to.
Is it a cancer book? Yes. Is it a love story? Yes. Is it sad? Yes. Are those all reasons that some people won’t want to read it? Yes. Are they good reasons? Maybe; but I hope people read it just to see that behind all the pink ribbons, Live Strong bracelets, and the “fighting cancer,” there are kids, parents, brothers, sisters, and friends simply putting one foot in front of the other just like everyone else and they aren’t looking for heroics. Life is quite unfair, but it is all we have; and Augustus and Hazel are amazing examples of how to simply be good.
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