Skip to main content

The Fault in Our Stars


Summary: 
Hazel meets Augustus at a cancer patient support group. She has thyroid cancer that has metastasized to her lungs and Augustus lost his leg to bone cancer. They exchange favorite books. Hazel's favorite has a cliffhanger ending, which leads Augustus to contact the author to try to find out what happens at the end. He manages to arrange a meeting and surprises Hazel with plane tickets to meet Van Houten, the author. When the pair meet him, they discover that Van Houten is a bitter drunkard. Augustus confesses his love for Hazel and also reveals that his health is not as good as he had told Hazel. Augustus dies from his cancer and Van Houten attends his funeral to apologize to Hazel for his actions and explains to her that it is impossible to avoid being hurt, but we can choose who we allow to hurt us. He says that he is happy with his choices and hopes Hazel is as well. Hazel ends the book by saying that she is happy with her choice.

Strengths: 
The Fault in our Stars is told from the point of view of Hazel. There are very few books that tell their story from the point of view of a cancer patient, so this point of view is unique. Green strives to portray cancer patients are fully realized characters, and does so with quite a bit of humor. The emotional realism in the book is its best asset. The characters don't shy away from the grief and fear of facing their own mortality and that of their loved ones. The characters are not defined by their illnesses as much as their lives are shaped by them. This distinction is an important one.

 Green, J. (2012). The fault in our stars. New York, NY: Penguin Group. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bloom's Taxonomy for a Digital Age

Bloom's Taxonomy. One of the things we are constantly hearing in our school is the push for increased rigor in our classroom, as a result of the STAAR tests and others like it becoming more rigorous. We are told to push for higher order thinking and questioning from our students. One of the tools we use to look at how we can increase rigor is Bloom's Taxonomy. But some things about Bloom's don't translate exactly when we are talking about the digital age and the classroom or library. For example, remembering is the lowest piece of the triangle for Bloom's, but remembering looks different when you have instant access to a powerful computer that can use essentially limitless online resources to find answers. I've mentioned to my husband just how much more this and future generations will know about the world around them simply because they no longer have to remember everything they're interested in knowing. If I pass a historical marker for a place I haven...
7 comments
Read more

Library Communication and Social Media

When social media became a "thing", businesses were one of the first entities to jump on board. Many companies realized that social media created an essentially free way to advertise. As social media developed, targeted marketing using social media became an even more effective way to communicate and advertise with specific consumer bases. Educational entities eventually got on board as well. What does this have to do with your library? Plenty. Let's take a look at most popular social media platforms - Facebook and Twitter, and how they are being used by libraries to promote and communicate with their clients as well as help educate and connect library staff members worldwide. Stay tuned for a future post on the social media platform that is ahead of Twitter in teen use, Instagram. Facebook The brain child of Mark Zuckerberg and his Harvard classmates, Facebook was created in 2004 as a way for college students to connect online. Myspace, a Facebook predecessor, had al...
3 comments
Read more

Screencasting in the Library

I love screencast programs. I've used screencasts in my music classroom as sub lesson plans, as directions in centers and when I'm having voice problems like strep and I need to be able to teach the same lesson every day of the week without putting strain of my voice. Today, I'm going to show you two different ways to use screencast using two different screencast programs. Screencast-O-Matic Screencast-O-Matic is a web based screen capture program. You can find it here . You will need to download the record launcher, but once you do that, Screencast-O-Matic is really simple to use. A window pops up for you to select settings and once you do that, a small bar appears on your screen with controls while recording. Every time you press record, the recorder gives you a 3 second count down so you can get ready to go. You can pause, which is very useful. In addition, you can back up the recording and record over a previous mistake. I love this feature. There is a 15 minute lim...
3 comments
Read more