TFIOS, to reflect a little

From the moment you know John Green's main characters have terminal cancer, you may think it's a defeatist work. Would you recommend reading it? Why (not)?

Knowing that the main characters of the work have terminal cancer doesn't mean it has to be a defeatist work. I mean, I don't say it's not difficult having to live with cancer, but I think nobody should be classifyng the book about the life of a person (being this one fictional or not) who has cancer as a defeatist work just like that, without giving it a try, as if healthy people couldn't have defeatist lives. Okey, I'm conscious that having characters who have cancer has higher possibilities of the work being pessimistic, as most of this kind of books are like that (just as Hazel said), but you can't base your decision of not reading it when you don't even know the characters. World War II is a topic frequently used in literature, but in spite of that, nobody says that they won't read it because the probabilities suggest that at least someone is going to die.

Any story who has characters with cancer, isn't a defeatist work. It is a realistic work, just like a WWII story. For me, don't reading a book because the characters have terminal cancer is the same as not wanting to hang out with someone or to meet someone because s/he has cancer.

Answering the question, I would definitely recommend the book, because I love the characters, the story and all the deep and interesting ideas developed inside of it, but on the other side, I wouldn't recommend it.

Now you may be thinking "C´mon, you wrote all this monologue of why we should't stop reading a story basing on our prejudices and why one with characters with cancer was as defeatist as a WWII story, just for saying you wouldn't recommend it just after saying you loved it and why you would definitely recommend. You must be kidding ". Well, my bipolarity has an explanation. It's a lovely book, from which you can learn about, but I have to main reasons for not recommending it:

a) Just as Hazel loved AIA, and didn't wanted to share it, and wanted to keep to herself, the same happens with me and TFIOS (Obviously, this a battle I can't won, since thankfully/unfortunately all the world knows about it).

And...

b) My desire of protecting it from the prejudice from the people that it is a defeatist work, even when it got to be know by almost everyone because it was a story worth reading.

Of course, this is just my opinion, and anyone is allowed to disagree.

What do you think about John Green's choice of the title for this work?

In William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Cassius* says:  “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”, meaning that we are the one and only responsibles of our decisions, and that fate, our stars, is not to blame. 

John Green qualifies this affirmation as being "ridiculous" and saying “There is plenty of fault in our stars. The world is a profoundly unjust place in which suffering is unfairly distributed.” 

I think it is a good title, that dismisses Shakespeare's idea, which helps to explain what's the aim of the story, apart as explaining the story iself. Having cancer isn't the fault of Hazel nor Gus, it is the fault of destiny. It is the fault of their stars.

*a conspirator in the plan for killing Caesar

Last entry 

Published the 6th of July

TFIOS Chapters 22, 23, 24 & 25

Do you feel satisfied with Hazel and Peter Van Houten's last encounter?

Definitely yes.

I feel satisfied, because it is the moment when Hazel and the reader can really understand and know Peter Van Houten. We are able to understand why he wrote An Imperial Affliction, why he was so rude when he first met Hazel and Gus, why he never read the letters of his fans and why he was and alcoholic.

This is a cathartic moment, because their first encounter was a big dissapointment, and in this one we are revealed the true self of VanHouten.

Though at first it seems that everything was doomed after Augustus's death, there are two special moments that cheered Hazel up. Describe them briefly. 

Those two special moments are: when she gets to know that her mother was studying and when she found out what had been wrinting Augustus for her. 

The first one cheered her up because she finally found the ending to her story. She knew that her mom was doing something else apart from taking care of her, and that when she passed away she wouldn't have an empty house.

The second moment when she is cheered up, is when she was talking to Kaitlyn and she found out where could have been the letter of Augustus. Although we don't know what happens after she reads the letter, I believe that while and after she read it she would be feeling very happy.

Express your opinion about how the book ends. Do you feel relieved it didn't finish midsentence?

I am happy because it didn't finish midsentence, which is how AIA ends. The first time I read it I wasn't very satisfied, because I wanted to know what happened after Hazel had read Augustus's letter. It hadn't finished midsentence, but I felt like if there was a part missing. Anyway, after I read it again, I understood better the ending - I mean,which was the author's intention with it. 

Although I still would love that we could know Hazel's thoughts and feelings about Augustus's letter, I am very thankful for having received more of Augustus. After he dies, you know you won't "listen" to him again, but when reading his letter you get the opportunity to know more about his thoughts and feelings.

TFIOS Chapters 20 & 21

When Augustus said that he wanted to attend his own funeral, he asked Hazel to write him an eulogy. What’s your opinion of Hazel’s words?

I really liked it, because her eulogy served to offer Augustus some comfort and validation about how much he meant to her. It served to prove him that he wouldn't be forgotten by her, since he had left his mark, such as he wanted to do.

Why do you think John Green has chosen Augustus to die considering “he was apparently” the healthiest of three friends?

I believe he does it because he wants us to understand that life is like that. It doesn't matter if you are healthy or if you are very sick, we can't estimate when are we going to die nor we can decide when we are finally going to.

Also, another character that could have died is Hazel, but if Hazel died Gus would have another dead girlfriend, and that would be horrible for him.

John Green devotes the rest of his work expressing what’s like when your soul mate, your most beloved person, passes away; how emptiness, anger, and rejection invade us...

Find examples of those feelings in Hazel:

Example: “..., which was the saddest thing. The only person I really wanted to talk to about Augustus’s death was Augustus Waters.” Hazel (chapter 21: page 63)

-“...the kind of love Augustus and I share could never last. So dawn goes down to day, the poet wrote. Nothing gold can stay.”

"...when I grabbed the phone from the bedside table and saw Gus’s Mom on the caller ID, everything inside of me collapsed. She was just crying on the other end of the line, and she told me she was sorry, and I said I was sorry too..."

"It was unbearable. The whole thing. Every second worse than the last.[...] In the last weeks, we’d been reduced to spending our time together in recollection, but that was not nothing: The pleasure of remembering had been taken away from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing you co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we'd done were less real and important than they had been hour before."

"When you go into the ER, one of the first things they ask you to do is to rate your pain on a scale of one to ten, [...] And here it was, the great and terrible ten, slamming me again and again as I lay still and alone in my bed staring at the ceiling, the waves tossing me against the rocks then pulling me back out to sea so they could launch me again into the jagged face of the cliff, leaving me floating faceup on the water, undrowned."

Why did John Green decide to make Peter Van Houten reappear at almost the end of the book? Do you see any purpose of it?

The purpose is that there, Hazel and us can finally understand why AIA didn't have an ending and why he had been so rude with her and Augustus. Also, when Peter is finally understood, Hazel won't feel that all those years that she considered him as her best friend were a waste of time.

As a reader, you may have felt the story was practically over the moment Gus died. How do you think the novel will end? What do you expect to happen? Are you eager to go on reading?

When I first read it, I didn't imagined how it would end. I was kind of shocked, because I had never thought that he would die. I just kept reading to figure out what would happen, and specially because I wanted to know what would occur to Hazel.

TFIOS Chapters 15, 16, 17, 18 & 19

How does Augustus change as his cancer takes him over? You may quote his actual words. (You may want to draw a comparison between Augustus’s first visit to the Funky Bones Art Park and the one after knowing he’s badly taken.)

“Last time, I imagined myself as the kid. This time, the skeleton.”

At first, Gus was very happy all the time, and nothing, not even cancer, could take all his happiness and willingness of leaving a mark in the world. Then, when cancer takes him over, he starts to feel defeated, and loses all his brightness. 

Once again, Augustus plays with figurative language; say why he says the following: “I’m sorry. I wish it was like that movie with the Persians and The Spartans. There are no bad guys...Even cancer isn’t a bad guy really...”

In the movie, there's a battle were there are good guys and bad guys, but in the case of Augustus, there are no bad guys, it's just him and his cancer. Also, as there are no bad guys, there can't be a hero, so Gus would never have the heroic death he would love to have, because, just as he said, there is no heroism in dying from a disease. He says that cancer isn't a bad gay, because it is only trying to survive by living in him.

TFIOS Chapters 13 & 14

Reflect on the following fragments taken from the novel and express your feelings and what the speakers refer to:

a-“I lit up like a Christmas Tree, Hazel Graze.”, admitted Augustus. (page 51)
Augustus expresses here how much pain he felt in his body. A Christmas tree's lights are always turning on and off, and in the whole tree. Augustus would had been feeling a lot of pain in all his body, a pain that sometimes would intensify a lot.

b- “What am I at war with? My cancer. My cancer is me.” Augustus. (page 51)
I felt really sad in this part, because he was sad. He felt as if his cancer had defeated him. He means that his cancer was he, because the tumors were made by his own body, and because he had been so many time a kid with cancer, that he had finally become a only a kid with cancer, without leaving the proper mark he would had love to leave in the world.

c- “It’s a civil war, with a predetermined winner...” Augustus
His body was fighting with something of his own body, and the most likely to succed was the part of his body that was part of his cancer. As I said before, it was sad for me reading all this part, because we see an Augustus´s that feels defeated.

d-“There’s no glory in illness...there’s no honor of dying of...” Augustus.
He says this because, as I said before, he wanted to leave his mark in hthe world, something from wich he could be proud of. He would like to die from something he had done, that from cancer.

e- “I’m on a rollercoaster that only goes up...” Augustus
Again, here we see a defeated Gus. The rollercoester that only goes up symbolizes, such as the elevator, that he is going to Heaven, because of in the battle with cancer, cancer is going to win. The elevator also symbolizes death, because avery time someone was going to die, in the Literal Heart of Jesus they would take the elevator.

f- “Ignorance is a bliss...”Hazel (chapter 14: page 54)
Not knowing things makes us suffer less. In this part, Hazel might refer that it would had been a bliss not knowing that Peter Van Houten was so rude and a murderer of dreams like Augustus said. I agree with her, because that is one of the things that, for example, makes childhood so special. We disown many bad things of the world, as well as our ignorance also makes us have an incredible curiosity for everything.

TFIOS Chapters 11 & 12

Does the description of Amsterdam remind you of any place you’ve been to? Would you like to be there? Why (not)?

The description of Amsterdam doesn't remind me of any place I've been. I supposse, that although I've in many fantastic places, it reminds me to none of them because each place has its own magic. 

After reading that beautiful and magical description, I would absolutely like to go there, but I know that the description can make me have expectations that, if in the case I went there, can sadly fade if the place wasn't how I imagined it. 

John Green is so smart in making his readers be transported to that magnificent dinner Augustus and Hazel share. While contemplating all the beauty around, Augustus said: “People always get used to beauty...” Do you agree with him? Justify your answer.

I don't agree totally with him. I think that what happens is that we start losing the opportunity of feeling amazed by beauty,  and that maybe we get used to it, but I don't think we stop recognizing the pulchritude of things.  

Since the very first moment, Hazel and Augustus have got involved in serious discussions about subtle themes, such as afterlife. What do they each believe about it?

Augustus believes that we have souls, and that after we die there is something with a capital "S". He has always believed in that "Something". On the other side, Hazel doesn't believe in afterlife because for her "always" is an incorrect concept, although actually she isn't so sure that there is absolutely nothing.

Hazel couldn’t stop associating her disease to her surrounding reality. No matter how breath-taking Amsterdam turned out to be, she somehow found the way to compare it to “her medical condition”. Expand on this.

How do you think Hazel must have felt while/ after meeting Peter Van Houten?

Over all, frustrated and dissapointed. She spent a lot of time worshiping PVH and considering him as his best friend, so realizing that he was so rude, that wanted to know nothing about the novel and that he was the extreme oppossite of what she mights have imagined he was, would had been a big letdown.

Would you say their trip to Amsterdam was worth their effort?

I think that yes, because although they wasted time with PVH, they got time to reinforce their relationship, and because they did something that anyone in their condition wouldn't be able to do. They travelled to another continent, something that they might have never thought they would be able to do. I believe that despite the bad time they had, the rest of the trip was beautiful and magical for them.

TFIOS Chapters 7, 8, 9 & 10

At the begging o the chapter, Hazel tells us: “I didn’t slip away. I was left on the shore with the waves washing over me, unable to drown...” How did she feel? What was she looking forward to?

In this part she felt a lot of pain. She was looking forward the moment she finally passed away, since the enormous pain could mean that she was finally going to die.

When answering Augustus’s mail, Peter Van Houten himself wrote: “...impressed by the Shakespearean complexity of your tragedy...” What was Peter exactly referring to?

Their story was very tragic, and Shakespeare's stories, specially love stories, also were. It looked as if only one of them was going to survive, while the other one would consequently was going to suffer the loss of the beloved one.

How did Hazel’s parents face their daughter’s illness?

It was tough for them, obviously, but I think they were facing it very well, since they were making all the effort they could for taking care of her. Her mom was with her all the time, and although the dad couldn't because he was the economic support of the family and had to work, all the time he was at home would also take care of her and make her happy.

One thing I really like of her parents, is that they also encouraged her to hang out with other people of her age, because they knew that her life could end at any moment, so they wanted her daughter to have a well lived life, despite of having cancer. I admire this from them, because they aren't keeping her all for them, they aren't selfish, and letting her go a little so she can live her life, even if it was difficult, was very brave from them.

Explain the meaning of the swing and the need to get rid of it.

Swing means the infancy of Hazel, the oeriod of her life where she was healthy and where she and her parents were happier because they had less worries. Getting rid of it implies her transition from chilhood to adulthood, where people have to confront reality, and where they have to be always brave. She needs to let it go, to stop being attached to her healthy past, because otherwise her present would always be tormented by it and she would be able to learn to be more happy, even if she had cancer.

As we read the novel, we find out more about Hazel’s fears and rejections. What’s the worst thing about having cancer, according to her?

According to Hazel, the worst thing of having cancer was that the physical evidence of having it would always separate her from the rest of the people. She couldn't be unnoticed. People would always stare at her, and being stared is something uncomfortable for almost everybody, specially when they stare at you because you have a disease, when they stare at you like if they had pity for you.

Haven’t you been waiting for his love confession to Hazel? Was it appropriate and sincere?

I had been waiting for his love confesion. Although I knew Hazel also liked him, it was more likely that it would be Augustus the one that would finally express his feelings.

He had expressed his feelings before, but this love confession was very special, sincere and appropiate, because he expressed all what she meant to him, and how his love to her meant more than his big fear of oblivion.