REVIEW: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (audiobook)

Title: The Fault in Our Stars
Author: John Green
Narrator: Kate Rudd 
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Genre: Contemporary/Realistic
Length: 7:19min (6 discs)

Summary: Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.

Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning-author John Green’s most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.

Review: YA Master John Green has done it again by bringing readers (young adult or not) a story that raises the bar for YA fiction.

This book has been touted as: "a book about cancer without being a Cancer Book."  This is largely true, but it was sometimes to the detriment of the book, as Hazel's narration liked to remind readers often how much her and Gus's story was NOT about their cancer, an odd bit of hand-holding in a novel that respects and trusts its readers with pretty much everything else. However, I cannot deny that this is a book that defies the Cancer Book "genre."

How does it do so you ask? It manages this feat with the amazing characters. One of the most common complaints I've ever/read about this book is that its teenage protagonists are too "smart", and that teens who do not relate to Gus's existential musings, or Hazel's ability to quote poetry on command feel "inadequate", but I believe that's not giving teens enough credit. Hazel and Gus may be smart, but readers never forget they're teenagers: Gus plays video games and reads vacuous novels based off said games; Hazel loves America's Next Top Model and describes Gus as "hot." Furthermore, presenting teens with potentially challenging ideas such as heroism, existentialism, what it means to live a 'meaningful' life, etc. is something I think (some) YA should aspire to, and should not make concessions on.

To go back to the characters, I loved the humour Gus, Hazel and Isaac all brought to the story. Their gallows humour may not sit well with everyone, but it breathes life into these characters. What really hits this story home however is how Green presents their humanity, even in the face of their death. There are no heroic fights against cancer or characters who keep face despite the fact they're dying. No, Green shows us characters like Gus's last girlfriend, whom he didn't even want to date during the last stages of her cancer because her brain tumour made her say horrible things to him. This honesty about disease and what it does to people, and the respect that the text clearly possesses for people with terminal illness, in that it gives them life outside of their disease, is what makes this book special.

Some minor complaints are that it did have some moments that were a little too saccharine; I'm thinking specifically of Gus and Hazel's date at the restaurant in Amsterdam when people would randomly toast them, or the applause they receive when they make out in the Anne Frank House. Otherwise, this is a moving love story between two teens who, as Hazel would say, "have a touch of cancer."
 
Since I listened to this as an audiobook I do not want to make some notes about the narration. By and large, it was very, very good. It's not surprising that this title received an Odyssey Award (an award given by the ALA for Teen Audiobooks). Rudd's reading is impeccable and she gives each character a distinct voice and way of speaking (though I found her rendition of Isaac to be a nasally.) She brings a lot of emotion to these characters, whether they're being funny or somber. 

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Green, John. The fault in our stars. New York: Dutton Books, 2012. Print.