The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Title: The Fault in Our Stars
Author: John Green
ISBN: 9780525478812
Publisher: Dutton Books
Copyright Date: 2012
Genre: Romance; Realistic Fiction

About the Author:
John Green is the New York Times bestselling author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, and The Fault in Our Stars. He is also the coauthor, with David Levithan, of Will Grayson, Will Grayson. He was 2006 recipient of the Michael L. Printz Award, a 2009 Edgar Award winner, and has twice been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Green’s books have been published in more than a dozen languages.
In 2007, Green and his brother Hank ceased textual communication and began to talk primarily through videoblogs posted to YouTube. The videos spawned a community of people called nerdfighters who fight for intellectualism and to decrease the overall worldwide level of suck. (Decreasing suck takes many forms: Nerdfighters have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight poverty in the developing world; they also planted thousands of trees around the world in May of 2010 to celebrate Hank’s 30th birthday.) Although they have long since resumed textual communication, John and Hank continue to upload two videos a week to their YouTube channel, vlogbrothers. Their videos have been viewed more than 500 million times, and their channel is one of the most popular in the history of online video. He is also an active Twitter user with more than 3.8 million followers.
Green’s book reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review and Booklist, a wonderful book review journal where he worked as a publishing assistant and production editor while writing Looking for Alaska. Green grew up in Orlando, Florida before attending Indian Springs School and then Kenyon College.
John Green's Biography. http://johngreenbooks.com/bio-contact/.

Curriculum Ties:

• Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone).
• Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

Plot Summary:
Hazel is suffering from a thyroid cancer and isn’t expected to live much longer. She goes to a cancer support group where Augustus, who is also suffering from a serious illness. The two hit it off and agree to read the others favorite books. After reading the book Hazel gives him, Augustus complains that the plot ended to suddenly and wants to know how the book really ended. Finding that the author stopped writing after this novel, Hazel and Augustus contact his assistant to find out about the book’s ending. The assistant replies that the ending must be heard in person, and Augustus and Hazel fly out to Amsterdam to meet the author. When they meet him, they find out that the author is a rude drunk, and that the appointment was set up solely by the assistant. After the author insults them they head home, where they struggle with their illnesses and to find happiness with the time they have left.

Critical Evaluation:

The characters Hazel and Augustus are both portrayed as complex characters. Though both are suffering from debilitating, fatal illnesses, Hazel from thyroid cancer, Augustus from osteosarcoma, they deal with a full spectrum of human emotions, especially those that come from such an experience, like depression, but also joy, spontaneity, and love. Writing the story from Hazel’s point of view allows these emotions to be easily presented, and helped the character come to the forefront as a fully developed character. The tone of the story is fairly depressing, which can be expected in this kind of story. The characters often face their own mortality, and get discouraged and angry because of it. This is especially brought home with Augustus’ admission of his impending death. Despite this, the book ends on a higher note, where Hazel finds that Augustus has begun a new chapter to the book she liked, and the author apologizes for his actions.

Readers Annotation:
Hazel has just met a very interesting boy, Augustus. However, they are both dying of fatal diseases and they need to find a way to enjoy their final days together.

Book Talking Ideas:

• Talk about the diseases that the main characters are struggling with. Look for how they deal with these diseases.
• Talk about Hazel and Augustus' relationship. How does their situation change how they deal with each other?

Reading Level/Interest Age: 14-18

Challenge Issues:

• There is regular cursing throughout the story
• There is one scene describing a brief sexual encounter.
• There are brief scenes of teens drinking and using cigarettes.

Defense Collection:

• Grades 9-12 At 16, Hazel Grace Lancaster, a three-year stage IV–cancer survivor, is clinically depressed. To help her deal with this, her doctor sends her to a weekly support group where she meets Augustus Waters, a fellow cancer survivor, and the  two fall in  love. Both kids are preternaturally intelligent, and Hazel is fascinated with a novel about cancer called An Imperial Affliction. Most particularly, she longs to know what happened to its characters after an ambiguous ending. To find out, the  enterprising Augustus makes it possible for them to travel to Amsterdam, where Imperial’s author, an expatriate American, lives. What happens when they meet him must be left to readers to discover. Suffice it to say, it is significant. Writing about kids with cancer is an invitation to sentimentality and pathos—or worse, in  unskilled hands, bathos. Happily, Green is able to transcend such pitfalls in  his best and most ambitious novel to date. Beautifully conceived and executed, this story artfully examines the  largest possible considerations—life, love, and death—with sensitivity, intelligence, honesty, and integrity. In the  process, Green shows his readers what it is like to live with cancer, sometimes no more than a breath or a heartbeat away from death. But it is life that Green spiritedly celebrates here, even while acknowledging its pain. In  its every aspect, this novel is a triumph. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Green’s promotional genius is a force of nature. After announcing he would sign all 150,000 copies of this title’s first print run, it shot to the  top of Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s best-seller lists six months before publication. -- Cart, Michael (Reviewed 01-01-2012) (Booklist, vol 108, number 9, p96)
• He's in  remission from the  osteosarcoma that took one of his legs. She's fighting the  brown fluid in  her lungs caused by tumors. Both know that their time is limited. Sparks fly when Hazel Grace Lancaster spies Augustus "Gus" Waters checking her out across the  room in  a group-therapy session for teens living with cancer. He's a gorgeous, confident, intelligent amputee who always loses video games because he tries to save everyone. She's smart, snarky and 16; she goes to community college and jokingly calls Peter Van Houten, the  author of her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, her only friend besides her parents. He asks her over, and they swap novels. He agrees to read the  Van Houten and she agrees to read his--based on his favorite bloodbath-filled video game. The  two become connected at the  hip, and what follows is a smartly crafted intellectual explosion of a romance. From their trip to Amsterdam to meet the  reclusive Van Houten to their hilariously flirty repartee, readers will swoon on nearly every page. Green's signature style shines: His carefully structured dialogue and razor-sharp characters brim with genuine intellect, humor and desire. He takes on Big Questions that might feel heavy handed in the  words of any other author: What do oblivion and living mean? Then he deftly parries them with humor: "My nostalgia is so extreme that I am capable of missing a swing my butt never actually touched." Dog-earing of pages will no doubt ensue. Green seamlessly bridges the  gap between the  present and the  existential, and readers will need more than one box of tissues to make it through Hazel and Gus' poignant journey. (Fiction. 15 & up)(Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 2012)
• Awards:
• Black-Eyed Susan Book Awards (Maryland): High School
• Blue Hen Book Award (Delaware): Teen Readers
• Booklist Editors' Choice - Books for Youth - Older Readers Category: 2012
• California Young Reader Medal: Young Adult
• Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award
• Garden State Teen Book Awards (New Jersey): Fiction (Grades 9-12)
• Gateway Readers Award (Missouri)
• Georgia Peach Book Award for Teen Readers
• Golden Archer Awards (Wisconsin): Middle/Jr. High School
• Goodreads Choice Awards: 2012
• Illinois Readers' Choice Awards: Abraham Lincoln Award
• Indies' Choice Book Awards: Young Adult Fiction
• Keystone to Reading Book Award (Pennsylvania): High School level
• Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Awards: Young Adult
• Rhode Island Teen Book Award
• Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award - Best Young Adult: 2012
• School Library Journal Best Books: 2012
• Sequoyah Book Awards (Oklahoma): High School Books
• Soaring Eagle Book Award (Wyoming)
• Teen Buckeye Book Award (Ohio)
• Thumbs Up! Award (Michigan)
• Virginia Readers' Choice Award: High School (Grades 10-12)
• WAYRBA - Western Australian Young Readers' Book Awards : Older Readers
• Westchester Fiction Award (California)
• YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults: 2013
• YALSA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults: Book to Movie: Ripped From the  Pages (2015)
• Young Reader's Choice Award (Pacific Northwest): Senior
• Reconsideration Policy
• Freedom to Read Statement
• ALA Library Bill of Rights
• Springville Public Library Collection Development Policy
• The Library Director and designated staff actively evaluate and select materials. The Springville Public Library Board, acting under the authority given to it by Title 4, Chapter 6 of the Springville Municipal Code and Title 09 of the Utah State Code, has the ultimate responsibility for the determination of the policies for selection and acquisition of materials.
• Library materials are selected based on the following (not necessarily in order of priority):
• Local public demand and usage potential
• Popularity
• Subject coverage
• Relevance
• Accuracy and currency
• Presentation, readability and format
• Point of view (all sides)
• Cost
• Local connection
• Social values
• Collection balance
• To assess the item based on the above criteria, staff utilize:
• Nationally recognized and relevant pre-publication reviews
• Staff expertise
• Bestseller lists

Purpose in Collection:

John Green is an acclaimed author, who is one of the major young adult authors currently. This book deals with teens and fatal diseases, which is an issue that should be addressed in a collection.