The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault In Our Stars is an insightful and moving novel that will leave you with a lump in your throat, but with a more optimistic understanding of life.

It’s hard to explain why John Green’s latest young-adult novel, The Fault In Our Stars, is so great, because any attempts to outline the plot or characters make it sound like one of the worst books ever written. Green has always excelled at writing the sorts of young-adult books where the characters learn important things about themselves, which is already dangerous territory for writing anything that’s not unrepentant treacle. And Stars’ primary characters are teenagers with cancer. He’s in the territory of Lifetime original movies.

“I am not a mathematician, but I know this,” says Hazel Grace Lancaster, the narrator of “The Fault in Our Stars,” the latest novel by John Green, a Michael L. Printz medalist and author of several best-­selling novels for young adults. “There are infinite numbers between zero and one. There’s .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others.” The trouble, she says, is, “I want more numbers than I’m likely to get.”