The Fault In Our Stars

Green, J. (2012). The Fault In Our Stars. New York, NY: Penguin Group.
I don't even know where to begin.  This believable fiction novel is about a girl named Hazel who goes to a support group and meets a boy named Augustus. These teens share a tragic common bond of cancer, she has stage IV thyroid cancer and he had cancer and had to have his leg removed.  He ask for a trip to from the Genie Foundation to take her to Amsterdam to meet her favorite author.  Mr. Van Houten who wrote the book "An Imperial Affliction" invited them for a visit, or so they thought. When they arrive they discover he did not invite them it was his assistant.  He was and angry and rude old man, who was especially bitter to Hazel, so they left and Augustus told her he would write her the sequel. The two of them had fallen in love and while in Amsterdam, Augustus tells Hazel that his cancer has returned.  Augustus ends up dying very quickly and Mr. Van Houten  arrives unannounced to Augustus funeral and Hazel is furious.  She discover the author was mean and bitter because his daughter had also died of cancer and she reminded him of her. I don't want to spoil the ending, so I will just say there is more to this story that will bring you to tears as it did me.  I found this fiction book to be written in the realistic form.  The characters were consistent and the story emerges naturally.  The author paints a vivid picture in the mind of the readers of the heartbreak and sorrow that families and friends go through with such illnesses.  This book does have a movie version, but as usual the book is always more fulfilling. Two other exceptional reads by this author are Paper Towns and Turtles All The Way Down.