A Fault In Our Stars by John Green is not your typical love story, with a constantly happy and uplifting plotline. It deals with characters who have been diagnosed or affected by cancer. Despite the heavy subject matter, the novel does have a positive tone and leaves one feeling more hopeful about life.

The story revolves around a girl named Hazel Grace, who is in an uphill battle with thyroid and lung cancer. Even with her illness, she still acts in many ways like a typical teenager, and like every teenager she faces the dilemma almost every young person can’t wait to face: love. Augustus Walters comes into her life and changes everything. He makes her open up and realize that people need each other to get through hard times, and that being hurt is sometimes unavoidable. Their very atypical love story proves to the reader that even if someone’s at rock bottom, she can still take risks and make the most out of life.

In the end, Augustus ends up needing Hazel as much as she needs him. Their reliance on one another shows the importance of loving relationships, even though they come with the risk of being hurt. At one point, Augustus says about his relationship with Hazel, “You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world…but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices.”

This book touches hearts and forces tears to be shed; it’s a bestseller, as most of John Green’s books are, and is coming out as a movie in early June 2014. John Green is also known for writing his other bestseller, Looking for Alaska. Besides writing, he also co-runs a YouTube channel with his brother Hank.