By John Green
Read in 9th Grade
Hazel Grace Lancaster is a 16-year-old girl with lung cancer. She attends a support group for cancer kids, but only because she wants to appease her mother. Hazel generally considers it a waste of time - until she meets Augustus Waters. He once had cancer in his leg, which had to be amputated. Now, he is at the support group with his soon to be blind friend, Isaac, who has eye cancer. Hazel looks remarkably like his dead girlfriend, Caroline Mathers. He immediately asks her out, and by the end of the night, they have exchanged books. Her favorite book is An Imperial Affliction by Peter Van Houten, narrated by a girl named Anna, who has cancer. She loves it because it is not a cancer book. Anna doesn’t despair over cancer or fight against cancer. She fights cholera, and she sees herself as a side-effect of evolution. The book ends mid-sentence when Anna dies or becomes too sick to continue. Van Houten has become a recluse ever since he wrote the book, not writing a sequel or starting a blog. But Augustus finds his assistant’s email, and after a few emails back and forth, he says he will tell them what happened to all the characters in the book if they come to Amsterdam, where he lives. Only problem - Hazel’s family can’t afford it because of all the cancer bills. Fortunately, Gus has a Wish - sick kids can get a grant from a foundation for one wish. He uses his wish to get him, Hazel, and her mom to Amsterdam. But just before they are set to go, Hazel’s doctors vote it down. She gets her lungs filled with fluid, nearly killing her, and one of her doctors says it is too dangerous. Defeated, she despairs - until the doctors change their minds! When they go to Augustus’s house on the day of the trip, they hear him yelling with his parents, ending with “BECAUSE IT IS MY LIFE, MOM. IT BELONGS TO ME.” In Amsterdam, they meet Van Houten, who turns out to be a horrible drunkard, but end up having a great time. That’s when Augustus reveals what he was yelling about. He has had a recurrence of cancer, and he will die soon. This breaks Hazel’s heart, and at his funeral, she talks about who Gus really was, and what he did for her - all the way to his death.
Take note that there are far more nuances and metaphors and that the character relationships are way more complex than I could possibly have described here.
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