History Literature / TheFaultInOurStars

** Hazel also has one of those moments herself in Support Group, and due to the way Augustus was staring at her back, it's presumed to be mutual. Averted in that he was probably [[spoiler: distracted by the fact that she looked like ''Caroline Mather''s, his dead ex-girlfriend]], which isn't exactly the stuff of romance.

* FanDisillusionment: After Hazel and Gus go to Amsterdam to meet Peter van Houton and he treats them poorly and says awful things. [[spoiler:When he shows up at Gus's funeral he's softened a bit, acknowledging the reason why he was so negative- he had a daughter die of cancer]].

-->'''Dutch Cabdriver''':Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin.

* GallowsHumor: Hazel, Augustus and Isaac are as full of this as you would expect terminally ill teenagers to be. One particular gem:

* GetOut: [[spoiler:Hazel yells this at Van Houten when he gets into her car to try and talk to her]].

* HarsherInHindsight: InUniverse, [[spoiler:Van Houten insults Augustus' intelligence by saying his cancer must have spread to his brain. A KickTheDog moment on its own, but then Gus later reveals that his cancer did in fact return and has spread to the rest of his body.]]
%% * HeroicBSOD: Hazel has a [[DeathIsASadThing very understandable]] one after [[spoiler:Gus dies]]. And then, of course, poor Isaac had one after [[spoiler:going blind ''and'' being dumped by Monica.]]

** Hazel was diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at age 13, with metastasized tumors in her lungs. This is known from the [[FirstEpisodeTwist opening chapter]]. She plays this role to her would-be suitor, the dorky Augustus, who was once quite ill himself and thus able to understand her plight. [[spoiler:Then, the roles are [[InvertedTrope rather cruelly flipped]] as Augustus's cancer returns with a vengeance, making him the illboy and Hazel his (comparatively) healthy comforter during his last days. Notable in that '''both''' characters are technically ill the whole time; Hazel ultimately winds up being merely ''less'' ill than her rapidly-dying boyfriend]].

%% * {{Jerkass}}: [[spoiler:Van Houten, by his own admission]]. Though there may be hope for him after all. Maybe.

* LoveAtFirstSight: Subverted. Augustus seems to be extremely taken with Hazel when he first sees her at the cancer support group. He can’t stop staring at her. [[spoiler: He does genuinely like Hazel right away, but he was initially staring because she looked uncannily like his deceased ex-girlfriend Caroline.]]

* MayflyDecemberRomance: Played with, on the scale of an average human lifespan. Hazel, the sixteen-year-old protagonist, diagnosed with terminal cancer, has an uncertain number of years to left to live, but probably not many. Then she meets and falls in love with a seventeen-year-old Augustus, who is well into remission and will likely live a normal number of years. [[spoiler:However, Augustus' cancer recurs, every reader's heart breaks, and Hazel is the one left behind by a lover's death]].

* MoodWhiplash: [[spoiler:The day after Hazel and Augustus share their first kiss and make love, Augustus reveals that his cancer has returned and metastasized]].
%% * MustNotDieAVirgin: [[spoiler:Gus says, "I'm gonna die a virgin," but then later in the story he and Hazel have sex for the first and last time, thus assuring that this never happens]].

-->"[[spoiler:Ma'am, your daughter's car has just been deservedly egged by a blind man. Please close the door and go back inside or we'll be forced to call the police]]."

-->"Shakespeare's comedies end in marriage and his tragedies end in death, and I was rather fond of the idea that [[spoiler:my book could end (symbolically, at least) in both.]]"

* ShrugOfGod: [[spoiler:Van Houten's InUniverse reaction when Hazel and Angustus ask Van Houten what happened to the characters of ''An Imperial Affliction'' and he tells them he doesn't know]].

** At one point Augustus muses that it would be awesome to fly in a super-fast jet that could follow the sun. John's admitted to being a fan of ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' and this was the plot of their first special.

* StrictlyFormula: This novel, like Creator/JohnGreen’s other books is about a nerdy, highly intelligent teenage boy who has his eye on a quirky, mysterious girl, eventually going on a RoadTrip where he has a mind-blowing revelation about life. However it does reverses the roles, telling it from the quirky girl's perspective as she falls in love with the nerdy TeenGenius who is fawning over her.

* ThrowingOutTheScript: Augustus, Hazel and Isaac hold [[spoiler:a "pre-funeral" for one another, where they've written quite unconventional eulogies that they, to each other’s appreciation, read aloud]]. However, at [[spoiler:Augustus' actual funeral, Hazel gives Augustus' parents a glance before she's about to read that same eulogy she wrote for his pre-funeral again and changes her mind (even though she doesn't actually believe in any of the things she ends up saying instead) since, she states in the voice-over, "Funerals are not for the dead. They're for the living".]]

A [[TheFilmOfTheBook movie adaptation]], starring Creator/ShaileneWoodley as Hazel and Creator/AnselElgort as Augustus, was released in June 2014. There's also what could be considered a companion book, ''This Star Won't Go Out'', which is the autobiography of Esther Grace Earl, a young girl with terminal cancer similar to Hazel's. Esther and John Green were friends, and she was the inspiration for--though not the direct basis of--Hazel.

* AdaptedOut: [[spoiler:Minor characters like Kaitlyn, Lydia and Gus' sisters are not present in the film. Van Houten gives Augustus' eulogy to Hazel personally, while Isaac fills the slightly comedic relief role. Some other scenes are also cut to improve the flow (and shorten the length) of the film. John Green's cameo as the parent of Jackie, the little girl who wanted to try on Hazel's cannula, was also cut]].

** Hazel's parents have witnessed their daughter nearly die in the ICU when she was thirteen, and her mother was sobbing that she would no longer be a mom anymore. Later on, in the novel and movie she screams out in pain and they have to take her to the hospital in the middle of the night, when her dad has to carry her. Hazel is extremely relieved when her mother says [[spoiler:she's looking into social work to help other families going through a similar situation, and that she will always be Hazel's mom no matter what happens.]]
** Meanwhile Gus's parents are also looking out for him, but Gus DrivesLikeCrazy, insists on going on a trip without them [[spoiler:after finding out his cancer has returned]], and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking carries around unlit cigarettes]]. We see rather than hear that they try to be optimists, with the motivational posters at his house, while they indulge Gus's wishes like buying a nice suit for him to wear in case he didn't survive his first operation.

* AuthorAvatar: Downplayed. Peter Van Houten is not overtly meant to be one for writer John Green, but Green has admitted that Van Houten's views on authorial intent reflects his own, or at least what they were at the time he wrote the book, and also that [[spoiler:Van Houten's unpleasantness is essentially a [[SelfDeprecation self-deprecating]] reflection of his own uglier traits]]. According to Green though, this was unintentional when he wrote the character, and only something he noticed in hindsight.

--> "Ma'am your daughters car is deservedly being egged by a blind man. Please go inside before we call the police."

* TheBigDamnKiss: [[spoiler:Hazel and Augustus in front of a crowd of tourists ''[[MakingLoveInAllTheWrongPlaces in the Anne Frank house]]'']].

** Ever since her first diagnosis, Hazel has been wracked with anxiety about how her parents will react to her death-- she's their only child and they love her dearly. Near the book's end, Hazel's mother tells her that she plans to go back to school and become a social worker so she can help other families afflicted with cancer, and Hazel loves this idea-- she's glad to know her parents will be able to carry on, even after losing her.

* BrokenPedestal: Both Augustus Waters and Hazel Grace love and are obsessed with the book ''An Imperial Affliction'' by Peter Van Houten. Augustus uses his one wish to take Hazel to meet Van Houten in Amsterdam. Unfortunately [[spoiler:he turns out to be a total cynical Jerkass, not the wise and poetic writer they'd imagined him to be when they read the book. This is because he lost his daughter to cancer, and it is implied that Hazel painfully reminds him so much of his beloved daughter]].

* CompleteTheQuoteTitle: The title is {{quote mine}}d from [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Shakespeare]]'s "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves." John Green calls this "an easy thing to say if you're, like, you know, Shakespeare or a Roman nobleman," but found himself unable to agree with it 100%, as diseases -- especially diseases like cancer -- strike at random and rarely come to affect people who "deserve" it. As cancer is what really serves as the most negative influence on the characters' lives, the fault did indeed lie in their stars.

* DangerTakesABackSeat: [[spoiler:Peter Van Houten scares Hazel when he pops up in the back of her parents' van]].

%% * DeadpanSnarker: [[DisabledSnarker Hazel, Augustus, Isaac]], and Hazel's mom, sometimes. [[spoiler:And Peter Van Houten]].

* DelusionsOfEloquence: Augustus and Hazel are borderline cases--they get some of their longer and/or rarer and/or archaic words right and then misuse "transmit" or "soliloquy", for just two examples.
* DestructoNookie: Averted and lampshaded when [[spoiler:Hazel and Gus have sex, with Hazel commenting that "no headboards were broken", seemingly as a TakeThat to ''Literature/{{Twilight}}''.]]

* ToplessnessFromTheBack: A lingering shot of Hazel in this state after Gus takes off her bra is the most raunchy that the film's sex scene gets.

Before the book was released, it reached #1 on the Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble bestseller lists in June 2011, shortly after its title was announced. Barnes & Noble had accidentally released more than a thousand copies prematurely, however, the fandom vowed not to spoil the book for those who had not received copies.

* CompleteTheQuoteTitle: The title is {{quote mine}}d from [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Shakespeare]]'s "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves." Quoth Creator/JohnGreen, "Which is an easy thing to say if you're, like, you know, Shakespeare or a Roman nobleman, but in the broad sense, I don't know that I agree with Shakespeare a hundred percent." Diseases, especially diseases like cancer, rarely come to affect people who "deserve" it. It's really very random. And cancer is what really serves as the most negative influence on the characters' lives, so the fault did indeed lie in their stars.

** Hazel was diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at age 13, with metastasized tumors in her lungs. This is known from the [[FirstEpisodeTwist opening chapter]]. She plays this role to her would-be suitor, the {{Adorkable}} Augustus, who was once quite ill himself and thus able to understand her plight. [[spoiler:Then, the roles are [[InvertedTrope rather cruelly flipped]] as Augustus's cancer returns with a vengeance, making him the illboy and Hazel his (comparatively) healthy comforter during his last days. Notable in that '''both''' characters are technically ill the whole time; Hazel ultimately winds up being merely ''less'' ill than her rapidly-dying boyfriend]].

%% * {{Adorkable}}:
%% ** Both Hazel and Augustus. Lampshaded by each other multiple times. A more specific example would be Augustus's reaction to flying on a plane for the very first time.
%% ** Isaac, too.

* WritersCannotDoMath: While she's right that some infinities are larger than other infinities, Hazel incorrectly believes that the infinite set between zero and two is larger than the infinite set between zero and one. However, WordOfGod states that it was intentional, as he didn’t want his characters to always be right.[[note]]This is assuming we're looking at the cardinality of the sets. For some MindScrew, consider that using different definitions of infinity can lead to the statement being true, wrong, and backwards all the the same time. Two sets of infinity can be the same, just as easy as one can be bigger than the other. 0 to 1 could be the same, smaller, or ''bigger'' than 0 to 2. It really depends on what definition of infinity you use and who you ask.[[/note]]

** Hazel was diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at age 13, with metastasized tumors in her lungs. This is known from the [[FirstEpisodeSpoiler opening chapter]]. She plays this role to her would-be suitor, the {{Adorkable}} Augustus, who was once quite ill himself and thus able to understand her plight. [[spoiler:Then, the roles are [[InvertedTrope rather cruelly flipped]] as Augustus's cancer returns with a vengeance, making him the illboy and Hazel his (comparatively) healthy comforter during his last days. Notable in that '''both''' characters are technically ill the whole time; Hazel ultimately winds up being merely ''less'' ill than her rapidly-dying boyfriend]].

Characters/TheFaultInOurStars

** Hazel was also described as being less than supermodel gorgeous, with an overinflated face and badly-cut hair.

* AuthorAvatar: Downplayed. Peter Van Houten is not overtly meant to be one for writer John Green, but Green has admitted that Van Houten's views on authorial intent reflects his own, or at least what they were at the time he wrote the book, and also that [[spoiler:Van Houten's unpleasantness is essentially a [[SelfDeprecation self-deprecating]] reflection of his own uglier traits]]. According to Green though, this was unintentional when he wrote the character, and only something he noticed in hindsight.

* AuthorAvatar: Downplayed. Peter Van Houten is not overtly meant to be one for writer John Green, but Green has admitted that Van Houten's views on authorial intent reflects his own, and also that [[spoiler:Van Houten's unpleasantness is essentially a [[SelfDeprecation self-deprecating]] reflection of his own uglier traits]]. According to Green though, this was unintentional when he wrote the character, and only something he noticed in hindsight.

A [[TheFilmOfTheBook movie adaptation]], starring Creator/ShaileneWoodley as Hazel and Ansel Elgort as Augustus, was released in June 2014. There's also what could be considered a companion book, ''This Star Won't Go Out'', which is the autobiography of Esther Grace Earl, a young girl with terminal cancer similar to Hazel's. Esther and John Green were friends, and she was the inspiration for--though not the direct basis of--Hazel.

* FollowTheLeader: All of Creator/JohnGreen's earlier works were rereleased with covers incorporating design elements from this books' cover.

* TheBigDamnKiss: [[spoiler:Hazel and Augustus in front of a crowd of tourists ''in the Anne Frank house'']].

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Discussed by Hazel and Augustus; Hazel had used her wish to go to Disney World and Epcot, but Augustus saved his wish in case he could think of something more meaningful. [[spoiler: He eventually uses it on a trip to Amsterdam with Hazel to meet Peter van Houten.]]

* FandomSpecificPlot: A brief reference to "condomy difficulties" during TheirFirstTime has resulted in a good number of fics where [[spoiler: Gus leaves Hazel SomeoneToRememberHimBy]].

* HarsherInHindsight: InUniverse, [[spoiler: Van Houten insults Augustus' intelligence by saying his cancer must have spread to his brain. A KickTheDog moment on its own, but then Gus later reveals that his cancer did in fact return and has spread to the rest of his body.]]
%% * HeroicBSOD: Hazel has a [[DeathIsASadThing very understandable]] one after [[spoiler: Gus dies]]. And then, of course, poor Isaac had one after [[spoiler: going blind ''and'' being dumped by Monica.]]

* ThrowingOutTheScript: Augustus, Hazel and Isaac hold [[spoiler:a "pre-funeral" for one another, where they've written quite unconventional eulogies that they, to each other’s appreciation, read aloud]]. However, at [[spoiler:Augustus actual funeral, Hazel gives Augustus parents a glance before she's about to read that same eulogy she wrote for his pre-funeral again and changes her mind (even though she doesn't actually believe in any of the things she ends up saying instead) since, she states in the voice-over, "Funerals are not for the dead. They're for the living".]]

* TraumaSwing: Gus is [[GenreSavvy so attuned to the traumatic symbolism]] of Hazel's depressing old swing set that he helps her sell it on the internet.