The Fault In Our Stars

[Redskies]

Saw the film, haven't read the book yet, Totally want to. Seeing the film had a lot to do with this review: http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/ ... ult-media/ (no significant spoilers), and having seen the film, I really, really agree with that review and think it's excellent.

Oh My Goodness That Film. My (disabled) partner and (disabled) I absolutely howled with laughter, often, and sobbed, several times. For a very, very rare occasion, I was actually seeing little reflections of myself, my life, and some of the people I love and have loved, on film. I've never had a major illness, so I can't speak to its accuracy for someone on the inside of that, but I've been close to people with serious and terminal ilnesses, including one hooked up to oxygen 24/7 much like Hazel, and obviously there's the disability stuff; and the film just felt like my life in a way that almost no media is. When not being an educator and not online (because sarcasm transmits So badly!), I'm deeply irreverant, sarcastic and darkly-humoured about much of the stuff in the film, and so are and have been my ill and/or disabled family and friends, and I saw that reflected in the characters. "We may not look like much, but we're 3 people, and between us we have 5 legs, 4 eyes, and 2 1/2 working sets of lungs!" LOVE. They're young people simply discovering, exploring, and living their lives, and the illness and disability stuff just happens to be there and to be worked with and around.

Like the reviewer, I found it a fabulous and too-rare accurate portrayal of people getting to know one another and falling in love. To me, too, it felt like a real story about young people. You know how, sometimes, stories about young people don't quite feel like they're about young people? Either they're too 2-dimensional and reduced and their smarts, thoughts and world-awareness have been reduced, or instead they almost seem like jaded 30-somethings? These characters felt "right" to me. And also like the reviewer, I thought the sex scene was exquisitely excellent, both from the perspective of a youth sex scene - pretty much everyone here will know all too well how often that's done terribly - and a sex scene involving disabled people - for those of you who aren't so familiar, yep, that is also usually hideously biased and ignorant, even in portrayals of adults. Disabled young people and sex?- usually, that's a whole cocktail of fails. So, I LOVE this film and that scene. My quotation and descriptions are totally not anywhere near doing it justice.

If you've seen the film or read the book (or both!), what did you think?

[Keda]

I've read the book and haven't seen the film, though I want to - alas it's not on Netflix yet, and Netflix's next best recommendation for me is Mean Girls 2 (um what) - but I definitely recommend reading the book. It's incredibly sad in a lot of places, but I agree with you - the characters are real and complex and have flaws as well as strength, in a way that's very rare. It's a love story primarily - and the cancer (not a real spoiler! This is announced on page 1 ) is always there, constantly getting in the way, but doesn't take centre stage away from the characters themselves.

I can't speak with the voice of authority since I almost never read romance - last time that happened it was by accident, because I picked up about twenty books at €1 each at a book fair and thought one of them was a story about migrant integration (as it turns out, not so much!) - but it's a great read, and it's wonderful to see two minority characters portrayed as regular people, without either focusing entirely on what makes them minority, or relegating it to token status.

[Sam W]

I loved TFIOS when it came out as a book, and I'm glad to hear that the movie kept the tone and spirit of the book. I'm with Redskies that the characters have always read as very realistic. There's a good balance between snarkiness and cynicism and genuine sweetness and vulnerability. I also feel like it captures the sensation of falling in love really well (a book I love along those same lines is Eleanor and Park, by Rainbow Rowell. Just a heads up for a very accurate depiction of an abusive father figure).

I also appreciate how the other characters call Gus out on his pretentiousness from time, or at least point it out to him. It helps keep his character from feeling flat and too perfect, because his pretentiousness is a flaw, but it's a very believable flaw for someone with his personality and outlook to have character to have.

[Onionpie]

I read the book, and quite liked it. I didn't really love it, mostly because I found Augustus a fairly boring character, too poetically "perfect" in the way that love interests in YA novels often are. His dialogue just seemed too smooth and wonderfully deep in a way that just, NOBODY is like that, because people say less-than-suave stuff sometimes and that's just a fact of life. Unlike Sam, I did find him flat.

I did enjoy the story though, and I like that it wasn't all about "boy comes into girl's life and shows her how to live and her life is changed forever" -- it was about two young people falling in love. Together. One thing I really liked about the book is that Hazel doesn't treat Augustus' disabled leg as disgusting, but even moreso, it also isn't just ignored. It's not treated as a "despite" -- she wasn't attracted to him "despite" his leg, she was attracted to him, and that included his leg. It was also not treated as a hindrance for sex -- their whole bodies were a part of sex, which is something that is basically NEVER presented in media. So that definitely felt pretty revolutionary and I did love that aspect of the book.

[Keda]

I actually liked Gus as a character, because he reminds me of an old friend. The guy was a very smooth talker and always sounded philosophical and intellectual - but it was actually all bluff, trying to make himself seem intelligent and aloof as a sort of defence mechanism. I was taken in as much as anyone else to begin with, but once I twigged what he was doing, it just became incredibly irritating, and I always preferred spending time with him alone over in a group after that, because we were close enough that he'd drop the act when it was just me. It definitely seems to me like that's pretty close to what Gus does - and it does ring true for me, I guess, for someone who feels like others have defined his identity for him according to his illness, to try to reclaim it by just being utterly baffling and pretending to understand things in a way that no-one else does.

[Redskies]

Perhaps Gus is portrayed differently in the film to in the book? One of his habits could totally come off as pretentious, I'll give you that! But other than that, I didn't read film-Gus as pretentious or presenting himself in a bluffing intellectual way. And wasn't it Hazel who was originally into the more intellectual-seeming book? Film-Hazel certainly matched, even more than matched, film-Gus in her smarts and depth. Film-Gus's thoughts came across to me more as "having all these thoughts about all these things!!" and not taking himself 100% seriously, rather than being the Guy Who Knows Everything (Or Thinks He Does). I saw him as someone who is itching to experience Everything in life, someone who's a really heart-on-sleeve person about what he's feeling and thinking. For sure, he talks about grand ideas and wants to be Someone, but I didn't see it as an act or a false presentation at all, because film-Gus was equally heart-on-sleeve at times when he was insecure or completely wrapped up and amazed by a new experience. He met Hazel, immediately flirted with her with lots of confidence, and then promptly walked into a door and grinned sheepishly at her. I did really enjoy film-Gus.

... I hesitated to say this, because I hope I am not pretentious!- but a little part of my partner and I's conversation after seeing the film involved me saying "I think I am a little like Gus, and you're a little like Hazel..." Partner: "I thought so too. Although there are things where that swaps round..." And so as not to be unrepresentative, I loved film-Hazel as a character, too.

Onionpie: the stuff about disability, yep. There's lots more about that in the review I linked to, and I didn't say it myself because I didn't see the point in basically repeating large-scale. What you point out was present (at least in the film) across the board, not just with Gus's leg. When he first meets Hazel - every interaction between Hazel and Gus - she's wearing her oxygen tube and has the trolley, of course, and it doesn't make the slightest difference to him flirting with her. When Isaac loses it, it's not because of the illness or disability, it's about something much more universal. Very connected to that, the film includes different ways in which other people and society respond in less-than-good ways to disability and illness, and how that affects the main characters themselves. Gus drawing the Venn diagram of "virgins" (not that I agree with the concept, but I hope the general point holds) and "18 year old guys with one leg" was - as someone partnered with a mobility-disabled guy with a bucket-load of unpleasant previous experiences which have also touched my life in deep and challenging ways - outrageously funny and skeweringly, poignantly real. My partner, too, laughed and cried at that. (We're both of the compassionate-and-sarcastic kind.) When Hazel revisits that Venn diagram later in the film, it was again deeply touching and real to me, and I know I laughed and cried, and I think my partner did too. That was one of the little parts of my life and my relationship/s represented that I hardly, if ever, see anywhere.

[ratperson]

I loved the book and the movie. I have endometriosis and it's been discussed as 'the closest you can get to cancer without having cancer', because it spreads but won't kill you directly. Because of that, I really liked how day-to-day life was described - having to move slowly and rest a lot, being a Professional Sick Person by sleeping in all the time, having to change school schedules because of illness, etc. I also liked that while the other features of their illness, like Gus's leg and Hazel's oxygen, weren't ignored, they weren't pushed to the front all the time either. I thought the sex scene was nicely done because sometimes disability DOES get in the way, but you just have to figure out how to get past it and then things can be just as good.
I liked the idea of finding 'the one' at such a young age, because I believe I've done so. Just because people are young in years doesn't mean they are immature, 'don't know what love is' or whatever others might say. I'm the only one from my high school's friend group who is still dating the same person as they were in high school (it's been four years! yay!) and all my friends are completely surprised we're still together because of the stereotype that young love always fails, so I liked the fact that they were able to be together and think of forever 'within the numbered days'. I cried the entire second half of the movie and cried reading the end of the book, but I also liked the book because of the similarities between a cancer that won't go away but also isn't getting significantly worse and endometriosis. :3

[kiki0802]

i own the movie so i watch it every day and i too love the scene where it says, "we may not look like much but we are 3 people and between us we have 5 legs, 4 eyes, and 2 1/2 working sets of lungs, so if i was you, i would just go back inside.

[kiki0802]

i feel that this scene makes me laugh every time

[Sunshine]

This is one of the rare examples where I think the film version is as good as the book.

I thought it was all very romantic. Not entirely realistic... To me, it read a bit like a fairy tale. But that isn't a bad thing at all, I like fiction to transcend reality rather than imitate it. If books and movies were no better than real life, there would be little point in them.

[Yana]

I really liked the sex scene, it was so sweet, and it felt like it was a huge important moment in the characters lives. The one thing I think there is not enough of, is teenagers having sex outside of marriage, and in not permanent relationships, and that being treated as something that is normal and not shameful.

[Bliss]

I read the book and watched the film. And guess what's better? Of course it's the book! I cried while reading the book especially when Hazel was complaining why she can't feel the love from her parents. But her parents told her they sacrificed a lot for her. And I also cried during the eulogy set up by Gus himself.

It was a really nice way to portray a love story which isn't really popular today (although I can see a possibility that more movies/books can go with this line of story).