Many authors and producers tell stories about the different controversies associated with cancer and its treatment. However, a new perspective has been put on this ghastly illness in the book The Fault in Our Stars.

Hazel Grace, a bright 16-year-old girl living in Indianapolis, Indiana, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer at the age of 13. She has been treated in may different ways, but no cancer treatment so far has fixed her collapsing lungs. Finally, a new type of chemotherapy is tried on Hazel.

Although Hazel still suffers from cancer, she attends daily classes at a local school and is part of a special support group for those affected by the disease.

In the beginning of the novel, Hazel finds the group get-togethers uneventful and repetitive. Soon enough, a handsome 17-year-old male—Augustus—shows up. At the time he is cancer-free after having suffered from osteosarcoma resulting in the amputation of his leg. Gus’s presence at the meetings gives Hazel something to look forward to.

After the first meeting, Gus and Hazel find themselves interacting, drawn in by one another’s intelligence and stubborn attitudes. Soon, texts turn into phone calls, phone calls into hangouts, and hangouts into days spent with each other. They find that they are shockingly similar in many ways, so Hazel takes a chance and introduces Gus to her favorite book of all time, An Imperial Affliction. They bond over the book, and discuss characters, plot, and the controversial ending.

By the middle of the novel, Gus and Hazel are crazy about each other, and Gus decides to use his one “Wish”—a gift that all cancer patients are given—to take Hazel, her mother, and himself to Amsterdam to meet the author of An Imperial Affliction so that he can reveal where the characters end up after the book is finished.

Although a not-so happy ending is imminent for this easy-going, somewhat comedic novel, it is a book that helps show that not all cancer stories have to have an overall torturous theme. Instead of writing his book about two people suffering in the hospital, Green tells the story of two young teenagers who continue to live their lives in the face of nearly insurmountable hardships.