The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is about a sixteen year old girl named Hazel Grace. Yes, this story includes a tale of first love, but its not a sappy Nicholas Sparks version.
Hazel Grace has been battling cancer mostly all of her life. At one point it got so bad that everyone was sure she was going to die, but then the miracle happened. The doctors treated Hazel Grace with this new medicinal drug called Phalanxifor that has a very low survival rate, but lucky for Hazel it worked on her.
Depression, which is a side effect of cancer, which is a side effect of dying, is something Hazel began to struggle with. With her doctor’s suggestion and her mother’s enforcement, Hazel began attending a support group at church. Hazel doesn’t really make many friends, but one day a new guy shows up with Isaac (another regular support group attendee). His name is Augustus Waters, and is a cancer survivor himself, but he lost a leg during the process of getting rid of his disease.
Hazel Grace and Augustus become very close friends and yep you guessed it -- fall for each other. They end up going to Amsterdam together to meet a favorite author of theirs, courtesy of Augustus’ never used cancer wish. But things turn South when Augustus’ cancer returns.
When they return to the States Augustus soon ends up in the ICU at Memorial Hospital. He dies not too long after.
This isn't just a love story with a sad ending, it’s luminous, its shows true compassion and will. It shines, just as Augustus’ body did during his PET scan, the cancer occupying all of his body -- but Hazel Grace will always occupy his heart.
Character Option #2: Provide two important passages that relate most to the character.
Character: Augustus Waters
Passages:
“The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous mini mall or start a coup or try to become a rockstar and you think, “They’ll remember me now,” but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your mini mall becomes a lesion.”
“After my PET scan lit up, I snuck into the ICU and saw her while she was unconscious. I just walked in behind a nurse with a badge and got to sit next to her for ten minutes before I got caught. I really thought she was going to die, too. It was brutal: the incessant mechanized haranguing of intensive care.She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest.Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark blue and I just her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar.”
Why I chose these passages:
I decided to write about Augustus Waters instead of Hazel Grace because I love how much he cares for her in the book. Both passages I chose are from his point of view and shows how different he is from most kids his age.
I chose the first passage because it shows how badly he wants to make a difference in the world. Augustus just wanted to be remembered when he died, he didn’t just want to be known as that guy who was really good at basketball and got a prosthetic leg because he had some strange disease, he wanted to be remembered for doing something great, and making a true difference in the world. I admire Augustus because if I had such an awful disease it would be so hard for me to see the bright side of life still, especially after losing a leg. I would be so mad at the world, but he shows the world that having something like that wouldn’t faze him and that life goes on. I believe he will be remembered for doing something great, because he showed the world up.
I chose the second passage because it shows a completely different side of Augustus. It shows the other side of him that cares so much for Hazel Grace. He would do just about anything for her and hates to see her on the brink of death. He knows that he soon will die too, but he spends every possible hour with Hazel. I can’t get over this, because just about any person would think he should be trying to fight the cancer, but he already knows there isn’t a point.
Every girl wants to have the love Augustus and Hazel have, and wants to be thought of as someone so beautiful and irreplaceable. He does something so amazing as to make Hazel feel this way, even when she can barely stand to look at herself because of how her cancer has made her look over the years. I believe that everything happens for a reason; if Hazel and Augustus had never had gotten cancer they would never have met, became great friends, and fallen in love. Now I’m sure they would have loved to not have had cancer, but through these unfortunate events, great memories have emerged after them.
AP Free Response:
Option #4: The most important themes in literature are sometimes developed in scenes in which a death or deaths take place. Choose a novel or play and write a well-organized essay in which you show how a specific death helps to illuminate the meaning of the work as a whole. Avoid mere summary.
The feeling is unmistakable; the moment when you find out the awful news. Everything slows down, time seems to have stopped, the loss of feeling and sudden overwhelming sensation of numbness spreads across your body. Nothing seems real; you don’t want to believe its true. You cry because you feel as though no one understands; you feel like you’re falling but fallings not the problem, its the moment when you hit the ground that everyone is filled with grief.
Death not only affects the actual person dying, but almost every other person who has met them. The family is devastated, the person married to or dating them can’t accept that its true, the friends are shocked and scarred. Death brings people together, and splits them apart. It brings out the best and the worst in people.
Cancer is a side effect of dying. Some deaths are quick and painless, but some are an ongoing battle of trying to catch just one more breath, in those cases dying is a relief. When someone has been suffering for so long, and fighting so hard, its anything but hard to let go.
For Augustus Waters, death was quick and sweet. When his cancer first appeared, he got away with only losing a leg, but the second time it appeared he wasn’t as lucky. When the pain first started returning, he knew something wasn’t right. When he went for his PET scan he saw how he lit up, he was luminous and glowing from the tip of his toes to the top of his head, the cancer occupying every crevice of his body.
The next few months of Augustus Waters’ life was filled with good and bad days. His health and body was always changing and getting weaker, but there was one thing that never changed about him, his eyes. He had the kind of eyes that you could get lost in, they were a deep blue and when you looked into them it was almost as if you were swimming. A persons eyes can tell you a lot about someone. Whether they’re happy, sad, angry, or just overwhelmed. But the light that Hazel Grace saw in Augustus’ eyes never diminished. Death can do a lot of things, but it can’t separate the love that two people have for each other.
When Augustus died, he had been with his mom, dad, and sisters. The funeral was mostly filled with students from his school coming to respect his death, but Hazel knew he barely talked to most of the kids. What happened after the funeral was what shocked Hazel, their favorite author they had met in Amsterdam had come to deliver something after he died. It was a sequel to Hazel’s favorite book he had promised to write. Hazel had assumed he got too weak and tired to write it, but he had been doing it in secret.
In some cases death is bittersweet. Bitter because you would do anything to have the person live and never want to let them go, but sweet because of the memories you had with them and all the reminders that they’re looking down on you from a better place.
