The Fault in Our Stars
Two teenagers with cancer who refuse to be tragic. Green is funny and honest about dying in a way that most adult novels are not.
Okay Hazel
John Green's 2012 novel is narrated by Hazel Grace Lancaster, sixteen, whose terminal thyroid cancer is being held at bay by a miracle drug. At a cancer support group she meets Augustus Waters, charming, funny, and newly in remission. They fall in love over a Dutch novel called An Imperial Affliction whose author has gone silent. Their attempt to find the author, and eventually to face what is coming, is both funny and devastating. Green modelled the novel partly on a teenage girl named Esther Earl whom he had befriended through the online fan community. The novel has sold over 10 million copies.
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"I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.
"John Green
Green dedicated the novel to Esther Earl, a teenager he befriended online who had thyroid cancer and died in 2010 at age sixteen. Hazel is not Esther but Esther's spirit is present throughout the novel.
The 2014 film adaptation earned over $300 million worldwide on a $12 million budget. The Amsterdam canal house used in filming became a pilgrimage site for fans who left notes and graffiti on its walls.