The Fault in Our Stars – by John Green

5 to the power of infinity STARS

A letter to John Green:

I’ve been wanting to read The Fault in Our Stars for so long now. But I was scared. I knew you were there with this piece of writing genius, but I pretended not to see you.  Our friend Sarah Hansen continuously whispered in mine and Jenny’s ear that we had to take the leap (I was game, she wasn’t). A month later you were on my kindle. That was yesterday. I thought you could stay there for a while until I got brave. Every time I looked you were there flashing your neon lights at me but I ignored you, I am sorry.

Sarah told me to sit in my bathtub whilst reading in order to prevent strenuous lugging of the buckets I would cry. So I did. I also got my blanket, a bottle of wine and some brown paper bags to minimise the unavoidable hyperventilating as well as my man size tissues.

I have to tell you that I did not move (much) in the hours it took me to read your book and my kindle did not leave me. I know this because I woke up with it still clutched in my right hand with a dent in my forehead where you landed when I fell asleep. The only time I put you down was when my tears made reading impossible.

You have made me think about courage, life, death and how I perceive the world. Even how the world perceives me. You very slowly made yourself a permanent home in my heart with the poignancy of the story of Hazel and Augustus, I hope you don’t mind that. You made something Tragic into something Beautiful through powerful writing. Wonderfully witty and sarcastic; truly heart-breaking and human.

I was reminded that books can indeed be entirely perfect, as yours was.  You showed that illness does not define a person – truly moving. There were no stereotypes and clichés rather it was inspirational and distressing in equal measure. At times your writing had me re-reading sentences because they were so beautiful, so powerful, so down-right genius.

I want to immortalize Augustus and Hazel. They were funny, intelligent, captivating, brave, cocky and self-assured, even annoying at times. I appreciated that you didn’t dress their journey up into being something it wasn’t. You made it harsh, real and believable.

My heart aches, my chest hurts from crying and I want to believe that nothing is terminal in the strictest definition of the term.

“My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.”

“That’s the thing about pain…it demands to be felt.”

John Green you are a literary genius and ‘The fault in our stars’ is absolutely flawless.

Okay

Gitte x