They say you have to be in someone's shoes to feel their agony. I say you have to love them enough to feel that same pain. I may be wrong but death is a feeling that almost all of us are somehow familiarized with. Whether by losing a family member or a relative, we all come to know the varying levels of pain and fear that comes with the inevitable stage of death.
I read 'The Fault in Our Stars' a few weeks back and had been gathering up my feels to write a review on it. I took alot (when I say alot it means ALOT cause I like to think Im a fast reader) of time in finishing that novel partly because I didnt want to continue. you ask why? I'll tell you. I have a hard time going through reading stuff that is painfully depressing. Sorry to spoil your fun but yes, the story will pierce through your heart like a bullet but at the same time give you a roller coaster ride of humor and reality of life and death through the characters. The strong and vivid imagery and symbols of the novel allow you to create a picture in mind and feel the emotions depicted in them. you'll say every novel tries to do that. Every novel tries to depict human emotions and evoke a certain sympathy for the characters. This one doesnt.
Characters do not, rather never ask for your sympathy. They are always brave and jovial (atleast on the outside) about their illness. They're always joking around as if its nothing to be afflicted by a dangerous disease called Cancer. This cantankerous tumor doesnt budge the liveliness that the characters possess.
Hazel Grace, the main lead and the only heroine of the novel, is a sixteen year old battling with cancer. She carries an oxygen tank around with her. wherever she goes, she has to drag it with her. She keeps thinking she is a problem child for her mum and is a symbol of ambiguous feelings of wanting to live and wanting to die at the same time. She becomes alive with the powerful feeling called love. The person who becomes the most important person in her life to share her exact feelings of being ill is Augustus Waters. Waters is also a teenager with only one leg having lost the other one in his battle with cancer. He is described to be a handsomely rugged guy with a voice that can call upon heavens and make it rain. Waters and Grace develop a strong chemistry with each other and spend their time together to find out how much familiarity they have in them. Not only the illness connects them but also their likes and dislikes, their feelings about certain things in life and their approach to battle cancer.
The novel was a sweet and sour ride of what it's like to be a person afflicted with a horrendous disease and how difficult it is to be a parent of such children. The parts where the writer discussed the helplessness of Hazel and her parents brought tears to my eyes. A person who has gone through this or a person who has seen a loved one suffer needs a lot of courage to go through the same pain again while reading this. At the same time, people who know about the pain of cancer and its patients can relate to the book with an alacrity that might be missing in other people. The writer has anyhow managed to skillfully arouse our emotions and love for the characters and you feel like doing something for humanity. To arouse that feeling is, I guess, an achievement in itself.
PS: waiting desperately for its movie to hit the theaters.
PPS: the couple in the movie is so cute I might cry again.
