THE FAULT IN OUR STAR

EduRes tutoring center

▪ STUDY GUIDE NAVIGATION
▪ About The Fault in Our Stars
▪ The Fault in Our Stars Summary
▪ Character List
▪ Glossary
▪ Themes
▪ Quotes and Analysis
▪ Summary And Analysis
▪ Chapters 1-5
▪ Chapters 6-10
▪ Chapters 11-15
▪ Chapters 16-20
▪ Chapters 21-25
▪ Symbols, Allegory and Motifs
▪ Metaphors and Similes
▪ Irony
▪ Imagery
▪ Esther Earl
▪ Literary Elements
▪ Related Links
▪ Essay Questions
▪ Quizzes - Test Yourself!
▪ Quiz 1
▪ Quiz 2
▪ Quiz 3
▪ Quiz 4
▪ Citations

▪ RELATED CONTENT
▪ Study Guide
▪ Essays
▪ Q&A
▪ Lesson Plan
▪ John Green Biography
The Fault in Our Stars Study Guide
The Fault in Our Stars is John Green's sixth novel. Green drew inspiration from his time working
as a chaplain at a children's hospital and from his friendship with Esther Earl, a friend of Green's to
whom the book is dedicated.
The book was released in January 2012, but it had already reached #1 on Amazon and Barnes &
Noble's bestseller lists 6 months before, in June 2011, due to Green's (largely online) following. Green
promised to sign every pre-ordered book, and did so in different colors of Sharpie proportional to
votes on Sharpie colors sent in online. Once published, The Fault in Our Stars held the #1 spot on
the New York Times Best Seller List for Children's Chapter Books for seven weeks as well as
placing first or within the top ten on a variety of other bestseller lists, including The Wall
Street Journal, Time, and The Guardian. There are over 1 million copies of the book in print in at
least 10 languages.
Critics received The Fault in Our Stars very well, touting its humor, language, and perspective.
Many other YA fiction authors, including Jodi Picoult, Markus Zuzak, and E. Lockhart, also applauded
Green’s novel. However, one notably negative review from the Daily Mail describes The Fault in
Our Stars as exploiting the stories of ill young adults, though Green responded to this claim in a later
interview by saying the idea that young adults can't read critically is condescending.
A film adaptation of the book, also called The Fault in Our Stars, was released on June 6, 2014,
directed by Josh Boone and starring Shailene Woodley (Hazel), Ansel Elgort (Augustus), and Nat Wolff
(Isaac). The film too was popularly and critically successful, becoming number one at the box office
during its opening weekend and receiving a 80% critic vote and 85% popular vote on
rottentomatoes.com. Differences between the book include the elimination of the
characters Caroline (Augustus's former girlfriend) and Kaitlyn (Hazel's school friend), increased
rapidity in Gus's illness, and a scene in which Gus shows up to Hazel's house in a limousine.
The Fault in Our Stars Summary
Hazel Grace Lancaster has been living with cancer for three of her seventeen years of life. Despite
this, she is a girl with a vibrant mind, biting wit, and incredible empathy for the position into which
she puts her parents of having to care for her. Her cancer began as thyroid cancer but spread to her
lungs, causing her to need to breathe oxygen from a tank at all times throughout the day. She attends a
support group at a church; there, she meets a friend named Isaac and a romantic interest named
Augustus. Augustus has been in remission after losing his leg some years prior, so Hazel hesitates in
starting a relationship with him, not wanting to hurt him if her illness takes another turn for the
worse. She introduces Augustus to her favorite book, and he forms a plan in which they will travel to
Amsterdam together (using the "Wish" given to him by a foundation for children with cancer) to meet
the reclusive and mysterious author and find out what happens after the book's end. They are able to
take this trip, but when they arrive to meet the author he is drunk and surly. At the end of the trip,
Augustus reveals to Hazel that his cancer has come back and is much worse than the previous time.
They return home and Hazel stays by his side until his death. The author attends Augustus's funeral
and tries to apologize to Hazel; she realizes that his book, which is about a young girl with cancer, was
based on his daughter who died. Hazel copes with Augustus's death, comforting herself with the
strength of her family and a letter about her that Augustus sent to the author before his death.
The Fault in Our Stars Character List
Hazel Grace Lancaster
The main character and narrator of The Fault in Our Stars. Hazel is 16 years old and has been
dealing for three years with thyroid cancer that spread to her lungs. She is very close with her mother
and father and has largely left behind the friendships she had before she was diagnosed with cancer
and pulled from public school. Because she was able to get her GED, Hazel attends classes at a local
community college when her health permits. She meets Isaac and Gus at Support Group and becomes
romantically involved with Gus until his death.

Augustus "Gus" Waters

Augustus, 16 years old, meets Hazel at a support group for youths with cancer. Augustus lost part of
his leg to osteosarcoma years before and is believed to be cancer-free, though he has a relapse
midway through the book that leads to his death late in the book. He falls quickly for Hazel and they
begin dating, though she is scared of hurting him through her illness. Gus is a witty character who
loves metaphor, symbolism, grand romantic gestures, and he wishes to die with dignity for something
larger than himself.

Isaac
Isaac is another friend of Hazel and Gus's from Support Group. He lost one eye to cancer before the
book began, and loses another early in the book. He and a girl named Monica seem to be passionately
in love when the book opens, but she dumps him shortly before he loses his second eye, which leads to
great anger and sadness.

Frannie Lancaster, Hazel's mother

Frannie Lancaster obviously loves Hazel very much, but Hazel feels that she is limiting her mother
because her mother has had to leave work and devote all of her attention to Hazel and her medical
treatments. Late in the book, however, Hazel and the reader learn that, for the past year, Frannie has
been pursuing a Masters in Social Work online.

Michael Lancaster, Hazel's father

Michael Lancaster is incredibly emotionally invested in Hazel's survival, though he must continue
working to support the family; as a result of this, he appears less in the novel and knows less about
Hazel's illness and treatment than other characters. Hazel's father cries often, leading to more guilt on
Hazel's part that she is going to leave her family devastated when she dies.

Peter Van Houten

Peter Van Houten is the American author of a fictional novel An Imperial Affliction that exists
within The Fault in Our Stars. He is a witty, mean older man and an alcoholic, nothing like Hazel
had imagined when reading the book so many times. Van Houten keeps up a correspondence with Gus
that leads to Gus and Hazel visiting him in Amsterdam, though the visit is largely unsuccessful.
However, Van Houten attends Gus's funeral in America and attempts to apologize to Hazel,
whereupon she realizes that he had a young daughter who died of leukemia.

Lidewij Vliegenthart
Lidewij Vliegenthart is Peter Van Houten's secretary and, apparently, his caretaker. She arranges for
Gus and Hazel's trip to Amsterdam, leaving Van Houten largely in the dark: she hopes that his meeting
fans whom his book has truly touched will distract him from his declining health and habits. She quits
this job after the disaster that is the teenagers' visit to his home.
Patrick
Patrick is the leader of the support group that Hazel, Gus, and Isaac attend. He is a survivor of
testicular cancer and uses his story and his time to attempt to inspire other young people to continue
fighting cancer and communicating about their progress and feelings with one another.

Kaitlyn
Kaitlyn is the only of Hazel's school friends with whom she keeps in touch. Kaitlyn is boy-obsessed
and shopping-obsessed, so it is hard for Hazel and Kaitlyn to truly relate to one another; but Kaitlyn
keeps conversation with Hazel as light and normal as possible.

Monica
Monica is Isaac's girlfriend until she dumps him, ceasing all communication with him just before his
eye operation.

Caroline
Caroline was Augustus's former girlfriend who also died from cancer. Her form of cancer affected her
brain, causing her to be very rude and angry as she approached the end of her illness.

Mr. Waters and Mrs. Waters, Augustus's father and mother

Mr. and Mrs. Waters are Augustus's parents, and are very thankful for Hazel's support throughout his
illness. They cover their house in religious and uplifting aphorisms.

Dr. Maria
Dr. Maria is one of Hazel's many doctors, one that Hazel especially likes for her honesty and care. She
allows Hazel to travel to Amsterdam even though it is a danger to her health, arguing that Hazel's life
is still hers to live and enjoy.
The Fault in Our Stars Glossary
Preternaturally
Preternatural means beyond what is normal or natural.

Cannula
A cannula is a tube that can be inserted into the body, often for the delivery or removal of fluid. In The
Fault in Our Stars, Hazel uses it to get air from tanks she carts alongside her.

Myriad
Myriad means countless or extremely great in number.

Ascertain
To ascertain is to find something out for certain.

Hamartia
A hamartia is a fatal flaw leading to the downfall of a tragic hero or heroine.

Radiation
Radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or
through a material medium. In the sense it is used in The Fault in Our Stars, radiation therapy
refers to a cancer treatment using radiation to mitigate or kill malignant cells.

Chemo/chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is a category of cancer treatment that uses chemical substances, especially one or more
anti-cancer drugs ('chemotherapeutic agents').

Tumor
A tumor is a swelling of a part of the body, generally without inflammation, caused by an abnormal
growth of tissue, whether benign or malignant. Cancer itself is a malignant tumor in a part of the body
due to abnormal cell growth.

Mets
When tumor cells metastasize, the new tumor is called a secondary or metastatic tumor (colloquially
called "mets"). Its cells are similar to those in the original tumor; meaning, for example, that if breast
cancer metastasizes to the lungs, the secondary tumor is made up of abnormal breast cells, not of
abnormal lung cells.

Hoosier
Hoosier is a name for a resident of the U.S. state of Indiana.

Toroidal
Toroidal means torus-shaped or toroid-shaped, which resembles a ring or donut. Augustus uses this
word to describe a basketball hoop.
Existential
In philosophy, this term is concerned with existence, especially human existence as viewed in the
theories of existentialism. The term "existential crisis" often concerns a person questioning the
meaning or purpose of life.

Fraught
Fraught means filled with or destined to result in something undesirable.

Dysmorphia
Dysmorphia, usually used in reference to Body Dysmorphic Disorder, is a mental disorder of obsessive
preoccupation with a perceived defect in one's own appearance, sometimes to the extent of imagining
or mis-perceiving this deficit entirely.

Bereft
Bereft means deprived of or lacking something. It is often used to describe someone after the death of
a loved one.

PET scan
PET is an acronym for positron emission tomography. A PET scan uses radioactive substance called a
tracer to image the body's organs and tissues and look for disease.

Sobriquet
A sobriquet is a nickname.

Bacchanalia
Bacchanalia is drunken revelry, named after the Roman festival devoted to the god Bacchus
('Dionysus' in Greek).

Sisyphus
Sisyphus is a character in Greek mythology who was punished for wrongdoing by having to
repeatedly roll a boulder up a steep hill, only to watch it roll back down each time.

TMJ
TMJ is an initialism for temporomandibular joint dysfunction, a syndrome of pain and compromised
movement of the jaw joint and the surrounding muscles.

NEC
NEC, as stated in the book, stands for 'no evidence of cancer'.

Misnomer
A misnomer is a wrong or inaccurate name or designation. In the novel, Hazel says that a street named
Grandview is a misnomer because there isn't much of a nice view from there.

Topography
Topography is the arrangement of the natural and artificial physical features of an area.
GED
GED, which stands for 'General Educational Development', is a group of four subject tests which, when
passed, certify that the test taker has American or Canadian high school-level academic skills. The test
is often taken by a youth or adult who was for some reason unable to finish high school but wants to
apply to college or a job.

Soliloquy
Soliloquy an act of speaking one's thoughts aloud when by oneself or without regard to any listeners,
especially by a character in a play.

Supernova(e)
A supernova is a stellar explosion that briefly outshines an entire galaxy, radiating as much energy as
the Sun or any ordinary star is expected to emit over its entire life span.

Intracranial
Intracranial means inside the head or skull.

Coterie
A coterie is a small group of people with shared interests or tastes, especially ones that exclude other
people.

Sarcophagus
A sarcophagus is a stone coffin, typically adorned with a sculpture or inscription, associated with the
ancient civilizations of Egypt, Rome, and Greece.

Edema
Edema is a condition characterized by an excess of watery fluid collecting in the cavities or tissues of
the body.

Martyr
A martyr is a person who is killed because of their religious or other beliefs.

Parmenides and Zeno

Parmenides of Elea was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea in Magna Graecia. He was the
founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy. The single known work of Parmenides is a poem, "On
Nature."

Zeno of Elea was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of Magna Graecia and a member of the Eleatic
School founded by Parmenides.

Palliative
Palliative care is specialized medical care for people with serious illnesses. It focuses on providing
patients with relief from the symptoms and stress of a serious illness to improve both the patient and
the family’s quality of life, rather than focusing on a cure.
"Omnis cellula e cellula"
As explained in the book, 'omnis cellula e cellula' means 'all cells come from cells'.
AG
Analogous to the time markers BCE and AD, Hazel creates the term "AG" to mean "after Gus."

Indefatigable
Indefatigable means persisting tirelessly (i.e. without fatigue).
The Fault in Our Stars Themes
Lack of Agency
Lack of agency is possibly the most important theme for understanding The Fault in Our Stars.
This comes from the meeting of two situations that lack agency - illness and childhood. Hazel,
Augustus, Isaac, and even Anna from An Imperial Affliction struggle with their inability to make
decisions for themselves, travel, and experience life in ways that a normal adolescent or even adult
with an illness could, demonstrating the specific cross-sectionalism and compounding of the two
traits. As Hazel explores, one of the major things that causes the feeling of lack of agency is the fact
that cancer is not the antagonist of the book or of the people in the book's lives because it is only made
out of the characters themselves. In comparison to situations in which the characters feel like they can
act out - by smashing trophies, by egging a car, by yelling at their parents - there is nothing one can
aggress against in cancer besides one's own body.

The Meaning of Life (and Death)

Because the book is about youths with a terminal illness, the meaning of life and death is very
important to the characters. Throughout the book, Green allows the reader to take on many different
points of view on life and death through thoughts and conversations Hazel has by herself, with her
mother and father, and with Isaac, Augustus, Augustus's parents, and Peter Van Houten. Most
notably contrasting are the points of view of Hazel and Augustus - Augustus believes that to have a
good life one must accomplish something tangible, and that after life there is "Something with a
capital S" (p.168) Hazel, on the other hand, takes the tack of doing as little harm as she can in the
world, rather than focusing on making a large impact either negatively or positively, and does not
seem to believe in anything after life. Other characters in the story rely more or less on realism and
science versus religion and comforting "Encouragements" to help them cope with the uncertainty of
life and death.

Friendship
Through Hazel, Green allows the reader to see many relationships and where they succeed and fail. A
major factor in the success of a friendship seems to be empathy - that is, a care for another's emotions
based in mutual understanding. The fact that Kaitlyn, Hazel's friend from high school, is so awkward
around the topics of cancer and death makes Hazel uncomfortable by making her feel like she is
defined by those things and cannot be either fully herself. On the other hand, Augustus, who has had
cancer and generally deals with Hazel's health with as much levity as possible, makes Hazel feel
understood, and the fact that he even looks past her cancer to ask her about her own interests early
on makes her feel as if he both can deal with her cancer well and with her as a human being.

Love
Different characters in The Fault in Our Stars have different attitudes toward love as well.
Augustus seems prepared to dive headfirst into love with Hazel, not caring that she may die soon and
hurt him. Hazel, however, holds out from loving Augustus as long as possible, and even after she gives
in to love she does not let him know. Aside from romantic love, there is a strong theme of familial love
as well, and comparisons made between the types as Hazel's love for Augustus helps her understand
her mother and father's love for her - the kind that you don't want to lose, even at the chance of
getting hurt. Hazel's true love back to her parents is demonstrated by her happiness when she finds
out that her mother has been studying for her MSW - rather than merely appreciating them for caring
for her, she truly wants them to be happy even after she is gone.
Religion
Though Hazel, the main character, is not very religious and does not look at her cancer through a lens
of religion, the story has elements of religion that make it apparent that using religion is a way many
cope with cancer. Thus, the book mixes religious and secular approaches to demonstrate a realistic
world of youths with cancer. The Support Group is held in a church and utilizes prayer at the end of
the meeting, but Hazel treats this as circumstance and fairly meaningless ritual. Furthermore, the
"Encouragements" put up by Gus's mother and father are often religious in content and tone, which
allows them to cope with the approaching loss of their son.

Literature and writing

Hazel and Augustus's relationship is formed through sharing of books and poetry, especially from
Hazel to Augustus. Hazel has a pronounced love of books, perhaps seeing them as a way to travel and
experience things she is limited from actually experiencing by her condition, and has an impressive
mental bookshelf full of inspiring writers. Her sharing of these writers and their thoughts with
Augustus, who previously read mostly a gory, action-filled series based on a video game, parallels her
desire to share with Augustus a more comforting and realistic way of living life than constantly
seeking glory. Secondly, the theme of literature and writing, especially in the plot around meeting
Peter Van Houten, lends an element of meta-fiction to the book. Green starts the novel with an
Author's Note that reminds the reader that the book is fiction and not based on any person or event in
specific, obviously referencing the life and death of Esther Earl to whom the book is dedicated. Green
furthers this point of the separation of fiction and reality through the character Peter Van Houten,
showing that he did base some of his book on his own daughter, but that his persona is quite different
from his narrative voice and having him a harsh sermon to Hazel (and to the reader) on how one
cannot look for answers besides what the author has given.

Technology
Peter Van Houten, an important character to the book but one whose views are often (rightly)
questioned, refuses to communicate with Hazel and Augustus directly over the internet, saying he is
afraid of the stealing and illegal sharing that prospers there. However, technology in general is shown
in a very positive light in the book. Both Hazel and Augustus are being kept alive by new technology:
Hazel’s oxygen tank and BiPAP, and Augustus’s prosthetic leg. Furthermore, there is a lot of tastefully
written use of modern communication in the book - texting, calling, and email - that allow people to
communicate effectively and even saves lives (as when Augustus calls Hazel from the gas station). The
book, written for teens born when computers were already becoming ubiquitous, necessarily upholds
teenage values of technology as a positive force in medicine, science, and life.
The Fault in Our Stars Quotes and Analysis
“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”
Hazel (p.125)
Hazel, usually incredibly rational for an adolescent, especially in the case of fending off Augustus's
romantic advances, thinks this when Augustus reads to her from her favorite book after placing the
post about the swing set. Hazel is not completely sold, however, keeping her love secret from Gus and
denying him both a kiss in the park and a return "I love you" on the airplane to Amsterdam. This
internal conflict between love and safety is turned on its head when Augustus becomes sick, and Hazel
eventually realizes that it may be better to allow oneself to fall into love, like in this quote, even at the
chance (or certainty) of being hurt.

“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you
become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless
and until all living humans read the book.”
Hazel (p.33)
The nature of books themselves is major theme in The Fault in Our Stars, giving the book a meta-
fictional sense. Based on the rave reviews Green's book has received, The Fault in Our Stars may
be one such book that causes love and evangelism. Depicting Hazel as a devoted reader also makes the
book's reader feel akin to her, an important quality to establish early on in a book for young adult
audiences, especially one about a subject that will likely be beyond many readers' capacity for
empathy.

"I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple
pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a
shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and
that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know
the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you.”
Augustus (p.153)
Unlike Hazel, Augustus is not sparing in bold quotes about falling in love. Augustus toes the line of not
denying himself simple pleasures, saying it about looking at beautiful things and now about saying
true things. This attitude goes hand in hand with his desire to accomplish things, both corresponding
with the 2010s teenager motto that "you only live once [YOLO]."

“There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an
infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers
between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other
infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them,
when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to
get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my
love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for
the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.”
Hazel (p.260)
Hazel draws inspiration for the eulogy she gives at Augustus's pre-funeral from Peter Van Houten's
upsetting lecture to them at their disastrous meeting in Amsterdam. The fact that she has thought
over this concept and makes it her own in the eulogy shows real maturity, and the concept itself is
important for her ability to both love Augustus at that moment and move on after his death.

“The world is not a wish-granting factory.”

Hazel, Augustus, and Peter Van Houten
Hazel, Augustus, and Peter Van Houten say this throughout the book. It may be assumed that Van
Houten actually wrote it first in An Imperial Affliction, and it spread that way to Hazel and then to
Augustus. The phrase is used at times combatively, but mostly as a phrase of acceptance; cancer,
especially when surrounded by love and necessary resources, is not the worst possible thing -- and
even if it were, that would only support the idea that the world does not care about individual feelings,
nor is it always fair.

“There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time
when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed
or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember
Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and
thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught.
Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if
we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time
before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the
inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows
that’s what everyone else does.”
Hazel (p.13)
These are the first words Hazel says to Augustus, delivering them as a kind of sermon in Support
Group and wowing him from the get-go. This sets their romantic path for the rest of the book as
grittily realistic and yet wittily philosophical (and somewhat verbose). Hazel hits the nail on the head
in sussing out Augustus's biggest fear, and though she can never fully break him of a desire to make a
mark, she is able to better think through her own views on the issue throughout the novel.

“Without pain, how could we know joy?' This is an old argument in the field of
thinking about suffering and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be
plumbed for centuries but suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not, in
any way, affect the taste of chocolate.”
Hazel (p.35)
This concept, that there cannot be pain without joy (or can there?), is brought up multiple times in the
story. Notably, though Hazel undermines the concept in this quote, she endorses it in her real eulogy
for Augustus, explaining that funerals are for the living and that this concept can be very comforting to
his family and others. Whether she actually believes it by the end is unclear, but perhaps her
relationship with Gus and realizations about her parents' feelings for her complicate her beliefs about
the intermingling of pain and joy.
 “Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list
depression among the side effects of cancer. But, in fact, depression is not a side
effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying. (Cancer is also a side effect of
dying. Almost everything is, really.)”
Hazel (p.3)
Both Hazel and Peter Van Houten consider cancer, and people with cancer, side effects. This particular
thoughtful and darkly humorous quote makes up the second paragraph of the novel and sets the tone
of Hazel's narration for the remainder of the book.

“But it is the nature of stars to cross, and never was Shakespeare more wrong than
when he has Cassius note, ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in
ourselves.”
Peter Van Houten (p.111)
Van Houten follows this by saying, "Easy enough to say when you're a Roman nobleman (or
Shakespeare!), but there is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars." The theme Green calls out
in Van Houten's first return letter to Augustus is a lack of agency. Though Cassius seems to say that
the problem is not fate but within oneself, van Houten argues that that is easy to say when one is
privileged but is manifestly untrue when one lives through true adversity. Green's title, then, calls out
this theme directly, both the romance of star crossed lovers and the inability to steer their lives
individually and together to be what they would have wanted.

“Much of my life had been devoted to trying not to cry in front of people who loved
me, so I knew what Augustus was doing. You clench your teeth. You look up. You tell
yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but a
Sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry,
and you say all of this to yourself while looking up at the ceiling, and then you
swallow even though your throat does not want to close and you look at the person
who loves you and smile.”
Hazel (p.213)
This quote is representative of the imagery - and emotion-laden writing - Green features throughout
the book. Hazel has had to deal with more than the typical adolescent's fair share of pain and tears,
and through her hardships she has developed the ability to protect and distance herself from sadness;
and, if that fails, she attempts to hide her feelings so as not to hurt others (perhaps her greatest fear).
Seeing Gus go through these same motions, Hazel feels true empathy for him, just at the moment the
plot turns itself upside-down and Gus takes on the role of the sick "grenade."
The Fault in Our Stars Summary and Analysis of Chapters 1-
5

Summary
Hazel is a 16-year-old girl with cancer, which she calls a "side effect of dying" (p.3). Another side effect
of dying, according to Hazel, is her depression, and though she sees this as normal and incurable, her
mother talks to one of her many doctors and gets her set up with antidepressants and a regularly
meeting support group for youths with cancer. Hazel tells the reader about herself and her diagnosis
through her interactions at Support Group - she introduces herself each meeting along with the fact
that she has thyroid cancer that has spread to her lungs, always saying that she's "okay." She doesn't
like anyone in the group, including the leader Patrick who once had testicular cancer, besides a
teenage boy named Isaac who lost his eye to cancer and may be losing another.
One week not too long after joining the support group, Hazel attends one week - pausing to explain to
the reader that she must take certain supporting technologies with her everywhere, namely an oxygen
tank attached to a cannula that delivers oxygen directly to her nostrils - to find a hot boy, new to the
group, staring at her. He is Isaac’s friend, introduced to the group as Augustus, and Hazel decides not
to be threatened by his stare but to stare back at him until he looks away first. She succeeds, and when
Patrick asks Augustus for his diagnosis (osteosarcoma a year and a half before) and about his fears (to
which Augustus responds "oblivion" (p.12)), Hazel makes a speech about lack of meaning to which
Augustus responds "Goddamn...aren't you something else" (p.13).

After Support Group, Isaac, Augustus, and Hazel talk together. When Isaac leaves, Augustus and Hazel
continue talking; he calls her beautiful and compares her to Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta. He
invites her over to his house to watch the movie, which she doesn't immediately accept. They walk
outside, Hazel noticing his prosthetic leg, and share mutual disgust over Isaac and his
girlfriend Monica making out aggressively against the church wall. Augustus takes out a cigarette
and Hazel is immediately enraged, calling it is hamartia or fatal flaw and berating him with
disappointment. Augustus explains that he never lights them, only enjoying them for the feeling of
putting something that could kill him between his lips but not giving it the power to do so. Intrigued,
Hazel tells her mom (who has come to get her) that she will be watching a movie with Augustus.
Augustus drives Hazel to his house - a bumpy and terrifying ride because of his prosthetic leg. He and
Hazel discuss "Cancer Perks" - items and allowances that young people with cancer get because of
people's pity or sympathy for them. He asks Hazel about her story with cancer, and we learn more
about Hazel's journey over the past three years. She had surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, but
her tumors continued to grow and her lungs started to fill with liquid. At one point, her "miracle," her
lungs were very full and she had pneumonia that wasn't responding to antibiotics and her doctors and
parents thought she would definitely die then. However, her "Cancer Doctor," Dr. Maria, was able to
get fluid out of her lungs and put her on a new cancer drug called Phalanxifor, which shrank her
tumors. Hazel is now able to live at home and take classes at community college, though is still
saddled with her oxygen tank, medical check-ups, and fatigue since the cancer is not gone but only
kept at bay.
Hazel meets Augustus's parents and Augustus tells them that they will be watching a movie
downstairs, to which his parents respond that they will be watching the movie in the living room.
Augustus does manage to show her downstairs, and down there they discuss his prior basketball
prowess, as evidenced by a collection of trophies. He tells her that just before he had his leg
amputated he decided that games like that are silly and pointless when you think about them more
critically. He asks her about her life outside of cancer and they talk about poetry and literature. Hazel
decides to tell him about her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, and he says that he'll read it if
she'll read his favorite, The Price of Dawn. They watch V for Vendetta in Augustus's living room,
which is adorned with "Encouragements" such as "Without pain, how could we know joy?" (P.35.)
Augustus drives her home and asks to see her again, to which she replies that she'll call him when she
finishes his book, knowing his phone number will be written inside it.
Hazel stays up late reading his book; her mom, who usually lets her sleep in because "sleep fights
cancer" (p.38) wakes her up to get her excited about her half-birthday (Hazel's mother, who has
stopped working to care for Hazel full-time tries to keep their lives happy and exciting by celebrating
holidays with pizzazz). She encourages Hazel to contact her friend Kaitlyn and they make plans.
After class, Hazel's mom drives her to the mall where she buys the two sequels to Augustus's book and
then meets Kaitlyn. They shop for shoes together, though the situations is made awkward when
Kaitlyn blanches after making a joke relating to death, though Hazel downplays it lightly with a joke of
her own. Hazel soon craves alone time and pleads tiredness to end her time with Kaitlyn, retreating to
a quiet part of the mall to read her new books. While reading, a little girl approaches Hazel who asks
questions about her cannula; though the little girls mother calls to her disapprovingly, Hazel likes the
little girl and the encounter.
Before bed that night, Hazel begins to re-read An Imperial Affliction yet again. The book is about a
young girl named Anna who has cancer but instead of starting a charity for cancer creates one for
finding a cure for cholera. The book ends in the middle of a sentence, which Hazel understands as an
artistic choice to demonstrate the abruptness of death or illness worsening, but still wishes to know
the end to. However, the book's author Peter Van Houten has since moved from America to
Amsterdam and lives seemingly reclusively, having produced no further literary work. Hazel calls
Augustus and they talk briefly, but she flirtatiously tells him that he can't see her until he finishes the
book. The next day, after class and a movie with her mom, Hazel sees she has received a lot of
messages from Augustus despairing about the non-ending of the book. She calls him and hears noises
in the background "like the death cry of some injured animal" which turn out to be coming from Isaac.
Augustus invites her over to his house to visit both of them.
Isaac and Augustus are playing the video game version of The Price of Dawn, but Isaac is crying
heavily. His girlfriend Monica, who so often repeated their word "always" back to him, has broken up
with him before rather than after his eye operation after which he will be completely blind. Isaac
becomes unsatisfied getting out his rage through the video game and turns to destroying Augustus's
room; Augustus allows him to destroy his entire basketball trophy collection after which Isaac says he
does not feel better but evidently has gotten the anger out of his system for the time being.
After this "Night of Broken Trophies," Hazel does not hear from Augustus for about a week. She
becomes worried, and after a quick dinner one night she calls him. Augustus says he's been waiting to
call her until he has collected his thoughts about An Imperial Affliction. He talks to her about the
book and its author briefly, lingering on the fact that he is apparently unreachable. Augustus then
reveals that he has reached him, through his assistant, and gotten a full email from him. Hazel is
flabbergasted, thinking this is the "best gift ever," and writes her own email to send to Peter Van
Houten with her questions about what happens after the end of the book. After writing the email, she
calls Augustus back and they talk at length. They transition from talking about books to talking about
kissing, and Augustus reveals that he previously had a girlfriend who died. They decide they have to
get off the phone, but not before establishing a word like a more guarded version of Isaac and
Monica's "always" - "okay" (p.73).
A few days later, Hazel receives a text from Augustus saying that Isaac is now blind but NEC (no
evidence of cancer). Hazel drives to see Isaac at the hospital where they talk about Monica not having
visited him and about the qualities of good and bad nurses. She buys him flowers, leaving them with
his mom.

The next morning, Hazel finds an email reply from Peter Van Houten saying that he does not trust any
form of technological communication to transmit what happens after the story ends, but that if she
ever finds herself in Amsterdam she should visit him. She tells the news to her mom, who seems
tentatively willing to help her go, but realizing their money situation Hazel says that she will find a
way to go to Amsterdam without her parents having to pay. She calls Augustus and they talk about
The Genie Foundation, which gives children with cancer each a "Wish," though Hazel admits that she
used hers to go to Disney World when she was 13.

That weekend, Hazel and her parents go to the farmers' market and while there Hazel gets a call from
Gus saying that he will be waiting at her house when she gets back. He brings her bright orange
flowers and asks her parents to take her on a secret date. He takes her to the sculpture garden behind
the art museum where a large skeleton sculpture called Funky Bones is on display. He reveals that this
sculpture is by a Dutch artist, that the jersey he is wearing as a Dutch basketball player, and that
orange - the color of her flowers along with all of the food he has brought for a picnic - is the national
color of the Netherlands. He gives a speech to her, witty and sweet yet not allowing for actual
conversation, revealing that he has made it his "Wish" to take her to Amsterdam to meet Peter Van
Houten. They almost kiss, but Hazel flinches at the last moment and the chapter ends with her simply
telling him that he's the best.

Analysis
Hazel begins the story with a description of her lack of agency - told by her mother that she has
depression, forced to go to Support Group and then to speak there, even given depression and cancer
itself by the fact of death. Though lack of agency is a main theme in the book, it does not mean that
Hazel and the characters do not do anything. Green writes a complex enough character that Hazel
keeps an active life seeing friends, taking classes, and spending time with her family, and caring about
books and television shows even though it is clear that she sometimes feels forced into these actions
when they seem pointless in the larger scheme of life.

In quick succession, the reader is shown Hazel's relationships with her mother, Kaitlyn, Augustus, and
a brief encounter with the young girl at the mall. These relationships demonstrate the difficulty of love
and friendship for someone with an illness or hardship. To have a relationship, one must - like the
little girl and unlike Kaitlyn - not be so afraid of offending the person that you shy away from making a
real connection with them or validating and taking interest in their feelings. However, what Augustus
and Hazel's mother are able to do is recognize and care about her cancer but also look past it to her
interests and happiness.

The parallel romance story of Isaac and Monica, over almost as quickly as it is introduced, ironically
foils the relationship that develops between Hazel and Augustus. Isaac and Monica seem unafraid of
getting hurt, Isaac believing that true love will allow them to persevere, and is unprepared when the
blow comes rather than the perhaps over-preparation Hazel attempts, as will be shown further in the
coming chapters. Hazel, demonstrating an incredible ability to empathize, understands both Isaac and
Monica's points of view, telling Isaac that is wasn't nice to or for her either, his having cancer and
losing his eyes. This shock of reality does not heal Isaac's wounds, but it gives perspective to both him
and the reader on the lack of antagonist and antagonism Hazel sees in characters and in cancer itself.

Three characters' parents are shown in the book - Hazel's mother and father, Augustus's mother and
father, and Isaac's mother. The parents as a group are fairly homogeneous, with none of them
divorced or in financial duress, perhaps one thing overlooked by Green in his focus on portraying the
lives of teens coping with illness or potentially simply a representation of the parents of children who
would end up receiving care in similar areas and choosing to spend time together. Hazel and
Augustus's parents are lightly contrasted, with Augustus's relying more on religion and faith in
pleasant sayings. Parents are quite important to the story, however, as one of Hazel's main concerns is
not hurting her parents further financially while living or emotionally when she dies.

An Imperial Affliction is in parallel to The Fault in Our Stars as books about cancer but not
"cancer-books" in that they do not over-glorify the fight against cancer or show a martyred young
cancer-sufferer who founds a charity. Instead, both books deal honestly with a young girl who has
cancer and is looking to live life apart from only having cancer and potentially do some good. This
parallel will be important later when looking at the connection between a book and its author and
subject (in relation to Green's own writing of this book). Hazel and Augustus's reactions to the end of
the book are also symbolic, with Hazel wanting desperately what happens after the book ends in a
way that defies her knowledge of the book as a work of art and literature and betrays her youthful
desire for answers and perhaps meaning after life.
The Fault in Our Stars Summary and Analysis of Chapters 6-
10

Summary
Hazel tells her mother about Augustus offering to use his wish to take her to Amsterdam and her
mother initially turns the offer down, saying it's too much, but then relents and says they can talk
to Dr. Maria. Dr. Maria says that Hazel can't go without someone who knows her case well, meaning
Hazel's mom would have to go and leave her father at home. Her mom relents to this idea too, saying
she'll have to talk to Gus's parents and plan things out. Hazel has a headache, so she goes to bed to
think about Augustus. She thinks about their picnic, saying that it felt "Romantic, but not romantic"
(p.93) and knowing that she hadn't wanted to kiss him then and would have to if she went away on a
trip abroad which he has funded. She calls Kaitlyn to discuss the situation, though the conversation
is not one of much substance. Hazel realizes that why she is pulling away is because she doesn't want
to hurt him, thinking about his previous girlfriend Caroline.
Hazel looks at Caroline's Facebook page, comparing their looks and scrolling past posts from her
friends. Hazel notices that she still has a headache and that her shoulder hurts when she is called for
dinner, but decides it is because she was thinking about a girl who died of brain cancer. Her parents
notice that she is being quiet at dinner, first thinking it is sweet but then scolding her for being
"teenagery" (p.99). Then, she goes off at them, releasing pent up emotion that had been building; she
tells them that it's a waste of time to go on dates with anyone when she is a "grenade" ready to blow
up and hurt all of the people around her. In her room, she goes back to Caroline's Facebook page and
tribute pages, hoping that when she dies that people will have more things to say and think that she
did than just "Have Cancer" (p.100). She finds a post about Caroline from her mother talking about
how Caroline, because of her brain tumor, had stopped dealing with her anger in a "socially acceptable
manner" (p.101) especially because she lost the ability to speak. Hazel, urged on by this image, texts
Gus that she can't "kiss him or anything" (p.101). He responds in an understanding and even flirty
manner, but she shuts this behavior down by ending their conversation with "Sorry" (p.102).
Hazel tries to go to sleep, but her parents come in to tell her that she isn't a grenade to them and that
she can do whatever she wants - stop going to Support Group even - as long as she stays in school. Her
mother gives Hazel her stuffed animal named Bluie to sleep with and, though Hazel protests a little,
she falls asleep cuddling him. Hazel awakes in the middle of the night screaming from the excruciating
pain. Her parents drive her to the hospital and she says that though people always talk about the
courage of cancer patients, she would have been happy to die at that time. Hazel awakes in the ICU at
the Children's Hospital. She awakes and her parents are summoned who fill her in on the fact that she
does not have a brain tumor or any tumor growth at all but had a headache caused by poor
oxygenation from how much fluid had accumulated in her lungs again. They were draining her lungs
and would have to use a BiPAP machine that helps her breathe at night. Her parents leave her again
with the nurse who kindly fills her in on the events of the couple days she has been out of commission
along with telling her that a kid has been in the waiting room for days but hasn't been allowed to come
in to see her.

For six days Hazel stays in her ICU room, alternating between boredom, sleep, and pain. Medical
students watch her, she is told and un-told that she'll be allowed to go home, and then finally she is
really released. Hazel goes out to see Augustus and they are happy to see each other, though she
reminds him that they can't be together. He tells her that he corresponded with Peter Van
Houten more in her absence and gives her a letter. At home, Hazel reads the letter; it discusses the
nature of Hazel and Augustus as star-crossed lovers, her too sick and he not sick enough for their
relationship to work, finishing with telling Augustus that if Hazel wants to spare him pain then he has
to allow her that. Hazel, finishing the letter, asks her mother if they and the doctors can reconsider
whether she can still travel.
A few days later, Hazel is at a "Cancer Team" meeting comprised of her, her mother, Dr. Maria, and
various other doctors, social workers, and other professionals associated with her illness. There is
disagreement, with conversation largely between Dr. Simons and Dr. Maria regarding her lung fluid
and status in the Phalanxifor trial. Hazel suggests a lung transplant, but Dr. Maria says as kindly as
possible that she wouldn't be a good candidate. Hazel remembers back to her "miracle" - the time that
she almost died because of her lungs filling with fluid - and remembers something that her mother
said when she thought Hazel couldn't hear - "I won't be a mom anymore" (p.117). The meeting ends
by deciding the only thing changing in Hazel's regimen will be more frequent fluid draining and with
disagreement between the doctors - Dr. Simons still negative about the idea of travel while Dr. Maria
says that it's Hazel's life to live and choose, despite the risks. This is not enough, however, because he
parents say that without medical consensus they will not be going.

Augustus calls that night and she tells him the bad news. He laments that she cannot go but also his
fate, potentially dying a virgin. Hazel jokes back and after they get off the phone she watches TV with
her parents and then curls up with her BiPAP, which, while uncomfortable, she compares in sound to
cuddling next to a sleeping pet dragon. In the morning she wakes and hangs around lazily, drafting
another email to Peter Van Houten pleading for answers and then trashing it as too pitiful. In the
afternoon she calls Augustus but gets his voicemail. Sitting outside she thinks that she would rather
have a few healthy days than many sick days, and though she tells herself not to think that way she
begins to cry. Gus calls while she is crying and when he asks why she gives a slew of answers - not
going to Amsterdam, wanting to know what happens after An Imperial Affliction ends, not wanting
her life of sickness, the sky, and finally the swing set in her backyard which her dad built her when she
was a kid. Augustus promises to be over in twenty minutes to see the "old swing set of tears" (p.121).
Augustus meets her in the backyard and they talk about their relationship again, him warning her, “all
efforts to save me from you will fail” (p.122). They sit together, him holding her, until he decides
something must be done about the swing set. They go inside together and write a post advertising a
free swing set, riffing humorously to create the posting. They watch TV but then switch to Augustus
reading An Imperial Affliction aloud; as Hazel says then “As he read, I fell in love the way you fall
asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” After reading, they check on the post and find many requests,
choosing one from a man who pleads that his kids never go outside.
The next morning, Hazel finds a letter from Peter Van Houten’s secretary, Lidewij Vliegenthart,
with plans for the trip next week Hazel had believed to be called off. Hazel yells for her mother,
causing her to run out of the bathroom, wet and panicked. Her mother regains her composure and
breaks the news to Hazel - Dr. Maria called the night before and advised them that they should let
Hazel live her life and take the trip.
The day before the trip to Amsterdam, Hazel returns to Support Group. She talks to Lida, a girl who
survived appendiceal cancer and likes to compete and gossip at Support group, then talks to Isaac for
a bit and zones out for the beginning of the session. During the session, Lida calls out Hazel for her
strength, to which Hazel responds “I’ll give you my strength if I can have your remission” (p.131),
though she feels guilty afterward. Isaac invites Hazel to his house and she accepts. They play a video
game for the blind, again of the same world as The Price of Dawn, which entails talking yourself
through mystery and battle rather than watching the screen and using a controller. They discuss Gus’s
problem with video games, which is that he works so hard to save others and martyr himself for a
cause that he sometimes misses the larger plan.
The next day, Hazel and her mom wake up at 5:30 to catch a flight at noon simply because her mother
is excited and perhaps more than a bit worried. Hazel becomes jokingly fixated during breakfast on
why eggs can only be breakfast foods, pausing only to say goodbye to her father who she realizes must
think she might die before he sees her again every time they part. Hazel and her mom drive to
Augustus’s house where, from outside, they hear a crying, screaming fight. Instead of knocking on the
door Hazel sends Augustus a text saying they’re outside waiting, and Augustus comes out only a few
minutes later looking fully ready. They head to the airport where they are passed through a special
security check, but at the metal detector Hazel decides that she wants to go in and be scanned like
anyone else without her oxygen tank. She first feels a lightness and a comforting singularness, but
after passing through she feels a rush of pain and must take labored breaths with her cannula to
regain rightness. They arrive an hour early in their terminal and Gus quickly leaves, saying that he’s
going to get some food. Hazel worries that something has happened when he doesn’t come back after
a long while, but he arrives back with food just in time for pre-boarding. They go ahead, with everyone
watching them because of the physical signs of their illness, but on the plane Augustus resumes
conversation about the place of eggs as if nothing has happened. Soon, however, he apologizes for
leaving them at the gate, saying that he doesn’t like when people stare.

When the plane starts to taxi, Gus begins to get freaked out, and only once they are in the air does he
fully revel in the experience of flying which it seems he never has before. Caught up in his enthusiasm,
Hazel kisses him on the cheek. They land in Detroit, transfer, and then are on their flight to
Amsterdam. Hazel’s mom gives them each a sleeping pill, but it doesn’t work for either Gus or Hazel so
they talk for a while and then decide to watch a movie. They settle on 300, an action movie Gus has not
seen, which is full of senseless gore and bodies and enthralls Gus but does little for Hazel who instead
watches his face and then puts her head on his shoulder. After the movie ends they talk about how
many people died in the movie and in the world; Hazel had thought their might be more people alive
than had ever died, but Augustus assures her that he knows there are 14 dead people for every one
alive. They switch to reading, and Hazel recites some poetry for Gus. At the end of her poem, Gus tells
Hazel that he is in love with her, silencing her protests with an even more urgent profession. While
she feels a “weirdly painful joy” (p.154), she does not say it back to him, and eventually he turns away
to sleep.

Analysis
As Hazel looks at Caroline's Facebook page, she and the reader are able to note what things are
parallel and what are in stark contrast. The first thing Hazel notes is their appearance: once affected
by cancer they look similar, but before cancer they looked very different. In this way, she feels her
body ruled by cancer in the same way as this other girl, and feels understanding rather than
animosity. However, in reading the posts, she sees that their cases were very different, especially in
the way that cancer affected their emotions (bringing Hazel to a point of depressed introspection and
an existential outlook, but not to a lack of processing and resultant rage). Reading the posts on her
wall is also ironic to Hazel, she is able to witness the way that people trying to glorify her pigeon-hole
her into a life only about cancer and how people seek attention and comfort from posting on her wall
even though she can't receive their thoughts or writing.

The title of the book, 'The Fault in Our Stars', is directly referenced in one of Peter Van Houten's
letters in which he writes "Were she better or you sicker, then the stars would not be so terribly
crossed, but it is the nature of stars to cross, and never was Shakespeare more wrong than when he
had Cassius note, 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/But in ourselves.' Easy enough to say
when you're a Roman nobleman (or Shakespeare!), but there is no shortage of fault to be found amid
our stars" (p.111). The theme Green calls out again in this letter is a lack of agency. Though Cassius
seems to say that the problem is not fate but within oneself, Van Houten argues that that is easy to say
when one is privileged but becomes apparent as untrue when one lives through true adversity.
Green's title, then, calls out this theme directly, both the romance of star crossed lovers and the
inability to steer their lives individually and together to be what they would have wanted.
Love is discussed many times in this passage, with Hazel staying strong in her lack of commitment or
response to Gus's repeated professions of love but feeling love for him herself when he reads to her at
her house. Hazel seems to love Augustus most when he is not acting - is not putting on a show of
coolness or feeling the need to save someone, but reading to her or experiencing glee at a plane flying.
The times that he does get on a kick about violence and martyrs, Hazel does not fully understand,
which will be brought out later in the differing ways they view death, especially as they potentially
approach their own at a young age. For the time being, however, Hazel has still decided to keep him at
a safe distance.

The scene in which Hazel's mom rushes out of the shower turns, as happens every few chapters, a
brief eye to the inner mental lives of the parents in the story. Though Hazel's father is often shown and
analyzed almost pityingly through Hazel's eyes, seeing Hazel's mother's panic even when the reader
knows that Hazel is absolutely fine and even happy demonstrates the level of worry that she
constantly must live at, especially with the trip looming ahead. In this moment, Hazel does not seem to
notice, again revealing how quickly she can remember and forget again the strife of her parents.

The stares that Hazel and Gus get in the airport, like the comparisons between different people Hazel
can handle spending time with and why, again serve as almost a cautionary tale for the reader. Gus,
perhaps because the result of his illness is more hidden, cannot take the stares and has to leave
quickly. Hazel, used to the stares, notes them but does not react strongly. She understands that to
most others her life is ruled by cancer, knowing that to some extent it is true and evidenced by the
technology that reveals her status to others, paralleling to some extent her acceptance of cancer and
even death that Augustus seems to lack, especially later in the book.
The Fault in Our Stars Summary and Analysis of Chapters
11-15

Summary
Hazel, Hazel’s mom, and Augustus land in Amsterdam. The three stay at the Hotel Filosoof where the
rooms, August’s a floor ahead of Hazel’s shared room with her mother, are all named after great
“filosoofers” (p.157). Hazel’s mom wants to see a park, but Hazel is so tired that she goes to sleep with
the BiPAP and when she wakes she finds that her mother waited by her the whole time. She
announces that Hazel and Augustus will be going to a nice dinner that night, arranged by Peter von
Houten’s assistant.

Hazel wears a sweet dress and, when she opens the door to her room, finds Augustus in a beautiful,
well-tailored black suit. Hazel asks if that’s the suit he wears to funerals and he lightly says, “That suit
isn’t nearly this nice” (p.160). They ride the tram, watching light petal-like elm tree seeds blow around
in the air. The restaurant is called Oranjee; Hazel and Augustus are escorted to a canal-side table a
given complementary champagne, which they discuss the origin of with another kind waiter. The food,
sent out in many courses, is delicious; they eat and drink champagne until they are full and tipsy.
Augustus brings back up his suit, revealing that he bought it to be the suit he’d wear in his own funeral
back when he was given his diagnosis, even though he had an 85% chance of cure; Hazel says she
understands but is once again reminded of the difference between their diagnoses. Over dessert they
discuss belief in an afterlife, Hazel saying she doesn’t believe in anything and Gus saying he believes in
“Something with a capital S” (p.168). They argue about Gus’s obsession with dying for something or
leaving something behind after he goes, which Hazel says is a mean thing to say to her who feels as if
she is unable to do that. Though some tension remains, they are able to change the subject and find
that Peter von Houten paid for their meal.

They walk along the canal talking about what the visit with Peter von Houten will be like the next day
and what they believe happens after An Imperial Affliction ends. They sit on a park bench
together, leaning into one another, content. Finally, Hazel asks about Caroline and Augustus tells the
story of seeing her on the hospital playground from his hospital room and her being moody and
miserable, perhaps because of her personality or perhaps because of her cancer and its specific effects
on her mind and emotions. As he got better, she got worse, and he stayed together with her even in
her last year of life when she would call him names and even repeat the same mean things over and
over due to short-term memory problems. Though Hazel again says that she doesn’t want to hurt him
like that, Augustus tells her, “It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you” (p.176).
Hazel sleeps poorly and the next morning they eat a deli meat-filled breakfast in their room and then
prepare for their exciting day. Hazel decides to dress as much like Anna, the protagonist of An
Imperial Affliction, as possible. Hazel and Augustus split from her mother for the day and walk off
to Peter Van Houten’s house. When they arrive, a bass beat is thumping loudly and they have to
knock repeatedly to make their presence known. Van Houten pops his head out, and then slams the
door on them again, yelling at her for inviting them to his house. Finally, he opens the door again,
speaking to them harshly but ushering them inside.
His house, especially the living room they are led to, is strangely sterile but for two large, black
garbage bags full of 18 years of fan mail. He offers them scotch, drinking multiple throughout their
meeting and getting progressively drunker though it is still early morning. He talks to them about
alcohol, insults their intelligence, rants about philosophy, plays them Swedish rap, and refuses to tell
them what happens after the book ends. Finally, he relents to tell them what happens to Sisyphus the
Hamster, though when he gets to the subject of the Dutch Tulip Man he says that he is obviously a
metaphor for God and will go no further since he argues there is no reality of the characters outside of
what is written. He returns to insulting them flippantly, telling them that they seek pity from everyone
and that they are a side effect, a sentiment Hazel had long connected with and thinks to herself can’t
hurt her as much as she has already thought hurtful things about herself over the long hours in
treatment for her illness. Lidewij yells her resignation at Van Houten, done trying to stop him. Hazel
steps toward Van Houten, yelling at him for answers and smacking the glass out of his hand.

Hazel and Augustus escape outside. Hazel cries as they walk and Gus promises to write her an
epilogue himself. Lidewij runs up behind them, asking to take them sightseeing herself at the Anne
Frank Huis and Hazel consents, wanting to still make the most of their trip. In the car, Lidewij
confesses that she set up their trip mostly herself, hoping that seeing how his book affected them
would break him from his alcoholic downward spiral. They go to the Anne Frank Huis and even
though Lidewij warns that there are a lot of steep stairs, Hazel wants to go. Hazel pushes herself up
each set of stairs and a final ladder, struggling against her lungs and the pain that lack of oxygen
causes the rest of her mind and body, feeling like she owes it to Anne Frank. At the top she has to sit
against a wall, slumped and coughing, until she can finally get up and explore the rooms and discuss
the stories of Anne and her father, the sole survivor. Hazel is particularly touched by a book with the
names of all of the people from the Netherlands that died in the Holocaust; Anne Frank’s name is
there, but Hazel is particularly interested in the four Aron Franks in the book, people who died
without their stories being remembered. In an adjoining room there is a video of Anne’s father
speaking and with this in the background, Augustus and Hazel kiss for the first time, lingering there
together with Hazel thinking that all of the struggles she’s had with her body and with cancer have
been worth it for that feeling. When they open their eyes they find a group of people staring at them,
but against expectation the crowd breaks out in applause.

Lidewij drives them back to their hotel, and once there Hazel suggests that they go to Augustus’s
room. When pulling the elevator door open, Augustus has a moment in which he seems in great pain,
but then he pushes on. He warns her about what his leg will look like without the prosthetic and she
tells him to get over himself, kissing him in the hallway as he gets out his room key. In his room they
are limited by Hazel’s attachment to her oxygen tank but undress down to their underwear and get
under the covers. They have sex, which is not described in detail but is said to be “slow and patient
and quiet and neither particularly painful nor particularly ecstatic” (p.207). Augustus falls asleep
afterward and Hazel leaves quietly, writing him a silly love letter on her way out.
The next day, Augustus, Hazel, and Hazel’s mom get breakfast, the two younger ones describing the
situation at Peter Van Houten’s house and making it sound funnier than it was. Her mother leaves
them together with a significant air and Augustus leads Hazel back to the hotel. On the way home,
walking in foreboding silence, Hazel thinks about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs; she feels that it seems
to place her as less than human, at least unable to self-actualize, because of her sickness. She
comments to herself that she thought Augustus was able to see past this because he was once sick, but
maybe he still is. Once they are in her room Augustus tells her the news: he had a PET scan just before
she went to the ICU with fluid in her lungs and "lit up like a Christmas tree" (p.214). He apologizes for
not telling her earlier, both understanding that he is now the grenade and she the hurting lover. They
both cry, moving into bed together and beginning to talk about the palliative chemotherapy that he
has begun. Gus begins to rant about dying without a cause again, thinking about the martyrs (and lack
of "Cancer Kids") depicted in the museum they're going to skip going to.

They fly home, uneventful but for getting complementary champagne and a fit of intense pain in Gus's
chest. They arrive at home and Hazel discusses An Imperial Affliction with her father who read the
book while she was gone (as usual, he disliked the non-ending). The next afternoon, Hazel drives to
Gus's house to eat with his parents while Gus naps, attached to new chemo drugs. Isaac's mom brings
him over and Gus wakes up, bantering with Isaac who has found out Gus's diagnosis. Isaac still hasn't
heard from Monica since they broke up so Augustus, as weak as he is, takes Hazel and Isaac on a
mission; they buy a dozen eggs and take them to Monica's house where Isaac, directed by Augustus
and a bad shot because of his recent blindness, eggs her car thoroughly. Her mother briefly comes out
to tell them off, but Augustus reminds her of the situation, a blind boy "deservedly" egging his callous
ex-girlfriend's car in broad daylight, and she retreats.
A few days later, Gus, Hazel, Hazel's parents, and Gus's parents all eat dinner at his house. The tone is
light, with both sets of parents appreciating what Hazel and Gus have been able to give each other in
terms of companionship and understanding. A week later, Gus ends up in the ER with chest pain. He
has been confined to a wheelchair from then on because his heart is working too hard and Hazel is not
allowed to see him. Hazel stays in a waiting room nearby for a while, looking at recent pictures of
themselves all the way back to their surprise trip to Funky Bones and thinking how quickly everything
between them had happened. She mulls over something Peter Van Houten said during their disastrous
meeting - "some infinities are bigger than other infinities." Two weeks later, she wheels him back to
Funky Bones with a bottle of champagne and he notes, "Last time, I imagined myself as the kid. This
time, the skeleton" (p.233).

Analysis
In this section, both Hazel and Gus think deeply about the told and untold stories of people after they
die. The 14 dead people who could be remembered - but aren't - by any living person, the four Aron
Franks in the book at Anne Frank Huis, and the lack of "Cancer Kids" in the art museum all represent
Gus's major fear of not leaving a mark after he dies. Hazel is offended when he brings this up at dinner
at Oranjee, feeling that it is rude to say to someone who may soon die without knowing then that Gus's
prognosis is just as grim if not more so. These moments add to the theme of the meaning of life and
death that runs throughout the story - what must one do to have a successful life and what is the
worth and way of remembering someone after death.

Hazel's contemplation of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - both how it, in her mind, leaves her out and
how Gus has supposedly defeated it - seems to be somewhat a misunderstanding of the framework
itself, though a reasonable one. As is often the case in biology and psychology, models based on a kind
of large-scale evolutionary level do not always translate well into modern day circumstances. While
Hazel feels that having cancer keeps her in the lowest category of dealing with physiological needs,
the fact that modern medicine allows her to function on a day-to-day basis and even to deal with
questions of self-actualization prove that this is not the case. A chronic illness, unlike something acute
and immediate like the time she awakes screaming in paid from a headache and is forced to turn off all
connection to outside stimuli, can be managed, and the limbo that this places one in between the
reality of physiological ailment and the ability to function at further levels in the hierarchy creates
much of the tension in the book. The fact that Hazel feels so threatened by the framework, however,
reveals how sensitive she is to other people's perceptions of her as ill or even "less than human"
versus how she feels.

Augustus's use of simile when he describes his cancer to Hazel - saying he "lit up like a Christmas tree"
(p.214) - follows a general trend of him using witty, imagery-laden language to disguise his sadness.
Another example of this kind of language is "On a roller coaster that only goes up" which he says at
Support Group before his recurrence and again to Isaac when he is already dealing with an intense
decline in health after returning from Amsterdam. Using simile and metaphor to describe his situation
helps him to distance himself from it, something he desperately wants to do because of his feelings of
fear and inadequacy.

Gus's steep decline, which begins about as soon as he tells Hazel about his diagnosis, is a shocking
turning point in the book. His illness turns the original conflict - Hazel fearing entering a relationship
with him because she doesn't want to hurt her with her illness or death - ironically upside-down.
Hazel must now cope with his illness, making a choice between being a Gus (to Caroline) or a Monica
(to Isaac), a choice she thought she could spare Gus from having to make but now realizes was not as
clear-cut a decision as she tried to make it. Loving Gus and having to suddenly cope with his illness
gives her a look at how he saw her originally and at how parents of children with cancer view the
young ones they too thought were going to be healthy and vibrant long past the time they would be.

As throughout the book, this section sees an intermingling of childhood and a kind of premature aging
or seriousness cast on childish things by cancer. The car-egging scene is an important example of this;
as in all teenagers, the three have a desire to get out aggression and seek justice, but even Monica's
mother realizes that this scenario is something more than youthful angst, an outpouring of emotion
against the treatment of Cancer Kids by other people and the world. This theme is also reflected in
Augustus's thought at Funky Bones that even when he was at the museum with Hazel, she with an
oxygen tank and he with only one leg, he was able to see himself in the children. So close to death,
however, he can only see himself as the bones, ironically surrounded by sun, kids, and art, signs of joy
and life.
The Fault in Our Stars Summary and Analysis of Chapters
16-20

Summary
In Chapter 16, Hazel gives the reader a run-down of "a typical day with late-stage Gus" (p.234). Gus
tells Hazel that he is trying to write her a sequel to An Imperial Affliction, but most of his days and
nights are devoted to eating (often throwing up his food) and sleeping. They lie in bed together and
play video games until nighttime, at which time Hazel goes home to return the next afternoon.
On a morning about a month after they return from Amsterdam, Hazel arrives at Gus's house to find
him still in bed, mumbling and having wet himself in the night. Hazel retreats upstairs, letting his
parents deal with the mess, and only comes back downstairs when he's waking up. They play video
games together, neither paying much attention, until Gus brings up having wet the bed. Though Hazel
says it's no big deal, both can tell that something is different. After a length of awkwardness, Gus
brings up the fact that he always wanted to have a special obituary in the newspapers when he died.
This angers Hazel and she tells him that she feels like she can never be enough for him, bluntly adding
that he is never going to accomplish those crazy things he wants to be remembered for.

Sometime in the next few days, Hazel gets a call from Augustus in the middle of the night. She is
terrified that it will be that he has died but when she answers it's his voice. Gus is stranded at a gas
station he snuck out to and did something wrong with his G-tube. Hazel leaves for him, jotting a note
to her parents, and when she pulls up she finds him covered in vomit, hands pressed to his red,
infected-looking stomach where his G-tube attaches. He confesses that he went out to buy a pack of
cigarettes, more to prove he can do something for himself than anything else. Hazel apologizes to him
and then calls 911. While they wait, Gus cries, hitting the steering wheel and moaning that he is
disgusted with himself. Hazel grabs him and attempts to comfort him with reality, telling him that
there are no bad guys in life, not even cancer. She recites another poem for him and when it ends too
soon she continues it with her own words, making the poem about their lives and thoughts.

Hazel continues seeing Gus every day as he comes home from the hospital visit after the gas station
incident and begins taking more and more medication, staying in bed and feeling a complete lack of
dignity. His sisters come to stay with their husbands and children. Hazel meets these children who
seem to have a tenuous grasp on Gus's condition and his sisters who speak to him in strange babying
voices. They take Gus outside and Hazel attempts to temper the well-meaning talk of the sisters and
husbands with the classic witty banter they engage in in public, making light of cancer and its effects
on them and Isaac. Gus's dad, understanding how helpful this act of levity is in helping Augustus retain
a feeling of normalcy and personhood, thanks Hazel.

Hazel tells the reader, "that was the last good day I had with Gus until the Last Good Day" (p.252). She
explains that the "Last Good Day" is the concept that just before dying, people will have a day in which
they feel emotionally and even physically back to their old selves. The problem, she explains, is that
there is no way to know if a day is a good day or your Last Good Day until there are no good days after
it. Hazel had taken the day off from visiting Augustus, now sometime between a month and two after
their trip to Amsterdam, but gets a call from Augustus asking her to meet him that night at the church
where Support Group is held with a eulogy.

Hazel’s parents almost don’t let her go, arguing that they felt like they never saw her anymore, and
getting angry when she spoke briskly back at them. She goes to her room to write her eulogy for Gus
and when she comes out to leave and her father tells her she can’t leave without permission she
retorts that she’ll be home every night starting very soon which causes them to let her go.

When Hazel arrives at the Support Group room in the church she finds Augustus sitting in a
wheelchair and Isaac standing at the lectern about to speak. Augustus fills her in that he has
arranged this pre-funeral since he, he says somewhat jokingly, may not be able to attend as a ghost.
Isaac gives a bittersweet eulogy about how talkative, pretentious, and vain Augustus is, saying that
even if they make robot eyes in the future he wouldn’t want to see a world without Gus. Hazel helps
Isaac sit down in a chair and then goes up to make her own eulogy. Hazel says that she will not tell
their love story, because it’ll make her cry and because like all love stories it must die with them, but
she will talk about math; she says that, as Peter Van Houten told them, some infinities are bigger
than other infinities and she is grateful for the little infinity they had together.
Analysis
Gus's embarrassment at wetting the bed is another example of the mix of childishness and early
adulthood that is pressed upon youths with serious illnesses. In this section, Augustus feels both like
someone at the end of their life, which is to say as mature as he'll ever be, and witnesses himself
regress into a infantile state where he is unable to walk, eat properly, and control his urination. Rather
than being upset at the fact that he's dying, his dignity seems sapped by this childish lack of agency,
causing him to grasp for adulthood by going out to the gas station for cigarettes.

One of the most touching moments in the book is when Hazel continues the wheelbarrow poem for
Augustus while they wait for the ambulance. He complimented her early in the book for being a rare
teenager who enjoys reading poetry but does not feel pushed to write it herself. Now that she does,
she shows the ability to freehand poetry that is simple yet skillful, honest, and observant. Her stanza
of poetry is a sequel, like the one she so desires to An Imperial Affliction, demonstrating the desire
for the ability to reach beyond a piece of literature to find further answers.
Green does a fantastic job as an author immersing the reader in Hazel's world enough that small signs
can be interpreted without the need for further comment or analysis by Hazel. One such situation is
Hazel's choices to take the stairs or elevator throughout the book, since in the first Support Group
scene she tells the reader that only the most fragile members, no longer able to compete for health
status, take the elevator down to the meeting room. Though Augustus's pre-funeral falls outside the
social constructs of Support Group, it is interesting to note that Hazel takes the elevator down to the
room as if unable or unwilling to take the stairs and test or demonstrate her health.

Hazel's eulogy, in which she uses content from the meeting with Peter Van Houten but makes it
her/their own - demonstrates how much Hazel truly observes and thinks about what she is told about
life. Many characters - most notably Peter Van Houten, Hazel's father, and Augustus - share their
worldviews on life, death, and meaning and Hazel filters through these to choose what she believes
and to what extent. Green often writes moments in which Hazel reflects on things she was told earlier
and, using the new situation's context, evaluates them anew.
A strange moment in this section is that in which, after briefly discussing Gus's wetting the bed, Hazel
calls Augustus "Gus" and Augustus replies that she used to call him Augustus. Hazel is introduced to
Augustus in Support Group, in which he uses his full name, and only learns of his nickname in the next
chapter when she goes to his house the first time. Though it is a nickname that she says his parents
call him, he never indicates a particular aversion to it, and Hazel uses both his nickname and full name
seemingly interchangeably in her narration throughout the book. It seems that she uses his full name
with him because he gives such special attention to using even more than her full name - calling her
"Hazel Grace" - so when she uses his nickname aloud to him in the same way she has been in her head
for as long as she has known him, it is likely a surprise that he takes it so negatively. Keeping in mind
the fact that it is his parent's name for him and the amount of discomfort he has recently accrued
regarding his status as man versus child, this makes sense, but also creates a situation that is very
confusing for Hazel to navigate.
The Fault in Our Stars Summary and Analysis of Chapters
21-25

Summary
Eight days later, Hazel gets a call in the middle of the night to tell her that Augustus has died. Hazel
tells her parents and Isaac the news and then falls into deep pain, “every second worse than the last”
(p.262), trying to cope with the loss of someone who so made up her life recently and feeling as if
without him even their memories are less real. Comparing the pain on a scale to anything else she had
experienced throughout her three years with cancer, Hazel calls this the ten she had been saving. She
calls him and gets his voicemail. She looks at his Facebook, once again appalled by the misguided and
self-centered posts she finds. She writes a biting response to one post but gets no comment back from
anyone. Finally, she crawls onto her parents’ laps and lets them hold her for hours.
Hazel doesn’t really want to attend the funeral with everyone else who once knew him but she knows
she has to. She watches other people go up to his coffin then does so herself, hugging his parents.
Leaving her oxygen tank behind with her father and fighting for strength on her way up, she goes to
his coffin, observes him in the same suit he wore to Oranjee so recently, kisses his cheek and tells him
that she loves him and “Okay,” and finally tucks a pack of cigarettes into the coffin with him.

The ceremony begins and in response to some words said by the preacher she hears, “What a load of
horse crap, eh, kid?” (P.271.) Hazel spins around and is shocked to find Peter Van Houten sitting
there but tries to ignore him. Isaac delivers a eulogy different than the one from the Last Good Day but
still touching. Some other friends of Augustus say some words and then it is Hazel’s turn. Instead of
delivering a speech like she or he would like she gives one full of Encouragements that will make the
other people in the funeral happy thinking that “funerals, I had decided, are for the living” (p.273). His
sister speaks, his brother-in-law plays a song by Hectic Glow that Gus had liked, and then the
pallbearers take out the coffin.
Hazel doesn’t want to go to the cemetery, pleading with her parents that she is tired, but they make
her go. Afterward, Peter Van Houten asks Hazel’s family for a ride back to his rental car. He tries to
speak to Hazel again with fluffy language and allusion but she shuts him down, accepting a sip of his
whiskey and then asking him to leave the car. She has quiet evening, eating a bit to appease her
parents and then sleeping for a while. Later, Hazel’s father comes into the bathroom to talk to her and
they talk about life and love, he making her feel a bit better.

A few days later, Hazel goes to Isaac’s house. They play blind video games again, trying to get the game
to do funny things like hump cave walls. They pause after a while and talk about Gus, Isaac telling
Hazel again that he truly loved her. However, a bit of new information comes up when Isaac mentions
that Augustus had potentially actually been working on a sequel to An Imperial Affliction for
Hazel.
Hazel gets into her car to drive to Augustus’s house and look for the sequel only to find Peter Van
Houten creepily waiting in the back seat of her car. He apologizes, waxing poetic about a child saint
and finally breaking down in tears about ruining their trip, saying they were too young. All at once,
Hazel realizes Van Houten has had someone important in his family die. She asks him if he had a child
and he admits that yes, he had a young daughter who died of leukemia, just like Anna in the book. He’d
been separated from her mother but spent time with her trying out experimental therapies at the end,
eventually having to explain to her that she was going to die. When she did, he promised her that he
would meet her soon in Heaven - he says that that was 22 years ago now. Hazel tells him to go home,
sober up, and write. He agrees, but when she leaves him on the curb on the side of the road she sees
him contemplate his bottle and then take a sip.

Hazel gets to Augustus’s house and talks to his parents a while, letting them feed him. His sisters and
their families are still around providing noise in what would otherwise perhaps be too quiet of a
house. His parents allow her to go down to his room though they haven’t been able to go down
themselves yet. Hazel looks through the documents on his computer, searches for a journal in his
room, and rifles through his copies of An Imperial Affliction and Infinite Mayhem (yet another
sequel to The Price of Dawn). Not finding anything, she lays down in his bed, soaking in his smell.
Finally she goes back upstairs where his parents apologize but say that he probably wouldn’t have had
the time or energy to write anything secretly.
Three days later, Gus’s father calls to say they did find a journal. Though there’s nothing written in it, a
few pages are ripped out of the front. Hazel decides to check in the room where Support Group is held
and picks up Isaac early so that she can search the room. Finding nothing, Hazel is testy at Support
Group but receives some realistic support from Patrick who asks her why she decides to live and not
die; Hazel doesn’t have a real answer but thinks to herself that she feels as if she owes a debt to the
universe and to everyone else who doesn’t get to be alive.
When Hazel gets home she immediately gets embroiled in a fight with her mother about eating that
night. She finally brings up the thing she heard her mom say back when she had her “miracle” about
not being a mother anymore and tells her parents that she wants them to have a life outside of her,
especially after she dies. Her mother admits that she’s been taking online classes in social work. Hazel
is ecstatic at this news, imagining her mom being like Patrick at Support Group and crying with
happiness. Her mom says that she has actually been studying for a year, doing her readings and essays
late at night and in the car waiting for Hazel to come out of classes and such. Hazel and her parents
watch TV together as they often like to, stopping momentarily when Hazel asks if they will stay
together when she dies with them promising that they will.

The next day, Hazel gets a call from Kaitlyn in the morning. Kaitlyn asks about being love and they
talk briefly until Hazel has a realization - Augustus may have sent the pages from the front of his
notebook to Peter Van Houten. Hazel gets off the phone quickly and emails Lidewij. She gets a
response from Lidewij that afternoon saying she hasn’t been back since quitting on the day of the
awful meeting but that she will go look through Van Houten’s mail. Hazel refreshes her email all night,
thinking of her time with Augustus, until her mother comes in and announces that it’s a very special
holiday - Bastille Day.
Hazel and her parents go to the park to celebrate and after watching children play for a while Hazel
consents to go see Gus’s grave. Hazel does not feel much being there but puts a little French flag in the
earth mounded there. At home, Hazel finds an email from Lidewij with four attachments. She says that
Van Houten was very drunk when she arrived but she found Gus’s letter and made him read it. Van
Houten instructed her to send it to Hazel without any additions.

The letters are written in a large slanting hand but are undeniably the familiar voice of Augustus. Gus
had written to Van Houten to ask him to write a eulogy for Hazel based on things Gus thinks but feels
he is not a good enough writer to arrange well. He acknowledges that it is silly and animal-like to have
wanted to mark anything as his before he died. He calls Hazel a real hero for paying attention to the
world and describes the time she was in the ICU and was assured by the nurse that he hadn’t seen her,
revealing that he actually had. He ends by calling her beautiful and noting once more that “You don’t
get to choose if you hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my
choices. I hope she likes hers” (p.313). Hazel finishes off the story by directing a final comment to
Augustus, telling him that she does like hers.

Analysis
A striking choice on the part of Hazel (and Green) in this section is that of preparing a new eulogy,
different from the one she would and did give directly to Augustus. Hazel justifies this by saying that
funerals are for the living, coming to terms, with a somewhat sardonic tone, with one of the major
issues of the Facebook posts she found on Caroline's and then Augustus's walls. Isaac's, too, is
different, but not as falsely Encouragement-filled as Hazel's and definitely more personal. It may be
the case that, though Hazel justifies her choice as about making a speech for the living, she is also
trying to keep private her love with Augustus as she feels the memories and feelings already slipping
away.
Hazel's interactions with Peter Van Houten in these last five chapters show her acceptance and even
besting of the at times unpalatable reality of adults and authors as merely human. Though Hazel calls
Peter Van Houten her third best friend in the first chapter of the book, she now has a much more
mature ability to distinguish an author from their work and even a person's sadness from their vice,
as when she realizes that he had a daughter who died. This quality shows a coming of age in Hazel and
also reminds the reader, as in Green's Author's Note, that books stand on their own apart from the
reality of the author's life.

Hazel's joy at the knowledge that her mother has been taking online classes to get a Masters of Social
Work is incredibly cathartic both for the protagonist and the reader. Hazel has felt pressure ever since
her diagnosis over three years before to be her parents entire lives, worrying that they will be
destroyed at worst and perhaps divorced at best once she is out of the picture. It is very mature of
Hazel to be proud and supportive of her mother's plans, even if they will likely be put into effect once
Hazel dies, and her tears may mingle some sadness still with the overwhelming joy and relief.

Green book-ending (that is, starting and beginning his story) with the Hazel's mother celebrating
minor holidays demonstrates that life goes on, changed in some giant ways and yet unchanged in
others. Hazel's mother, a large influence in her life, has taught Hazel to be able to be happy and see the
good in small things like celebrating holidays together, and this gives Hazel the ability to feel pain for
the loss of Augustus but also prepare to move on with her family and her life.

Augustus's letter seems to demonstrate some ability in his last days to accept both that he will not
make much artificial claim on the world and that it was a somewhat foolish, animal-like desire.
Though he and Hazel have argued often about this, from his removed vantage he is now able to
acknowledge that her point of view is superior, even perhaps in the pursuit of making an impact on
the world, just as Isaac once said about his video game strategies. The letter gives Hazel some closure,
knowing firstly that there is not and never will be a sequel to An Imperial Affliction and more
importantly coming to terms with the pain and joy (and maybe joy in the pain, as the Encouragement
goes) that she and Augustus caused one another
The Fault in Our Stars Symbols, Allegory and Motifs
"An Imperial Affliction"
An Imperial Affliction, unlike most of the books and poems referenced in The Fault in Our
Stars, does not really exist. While allusions to real literature can be revealing, a book created entirely
for the purpose of existing within Hazel's world is of even more interest. Hazel likes the book because
it is about a girl with cancer, allowing her to relate and empathize, but is not a "Cancer Book" in that
the girl is not presented as the most strong and amazing person ever and does not start a charity that
is cancer-related, instead creating The Anna Foundation for People with Cancer Who Want to Cure
Cholera. Hazel seems to like the book because she approves of the girl in the story not allowing herself
to be defined by her cancer. Furthermore, some of what draws Hazel (and Augustus) back in is the
brutal lack of ending, demonstrating their reasonable mutual interest in childhood death and what
happens after for the child and especially the world around them (hence their fixation on what
happens to the Dutch Tulip Man and Sisyphus the Hamster.

The Unlit Cigarette

Gus's unlit cigarette is a clear symbol, even to him who chooses to do it for that reason. It is almost
masochistic, like wanting to love Hazel even when he knows about her illness, keeping something that
could hurt you so close. However, from the way he explains it outside of their first Support Group
meeting together, he seems to see it more like holding the power over something that could make you
sick, betraying his desire for control and agency.

The Swing Set

The day that Augustus and Hazel give away the swing set online is the day she allows herself to fall in
love with him (though she doesn't tell him yet). The swing set as a symbol is a strong one, hearkening
back to a generalized and likely idealized childhood in which she was young, cancer-free, and able to
play un-tethered to an oxygen machine. Hazel acknowledges that she has no strong specific memory
there, but that seeing it makes her sad in general. Furthermore, with Hazel's main issues with living
and dying being the impact she makes on her parents and others, it makes sense that she would want
to get the reminder of her childhood away from her parents and attempt to make a positive impact on
another family while she can.

"The Price of Dawn"

As a book series and a video game, The Price of Dawn is attractive for its simplicity, high body
count, and - unlike An Imperial Affliction - its lack of ending. Like the gory movies Augustus and
Hazel watch together as well, Augustus seems much more into these hyper-violent movies, books, and
video games because they allow the watcher or reader to witness and experience valor and
martyrdom. Isaac specifically says what is wrong with Augustus and The Price of Dawn's video
game, which is that Augustus is so blinded by saving someone on the small-scale and making a mark
that he can forget the rest of the game and therefore can't accomplish the goal that will allow the
person to actually be saved. This is symbolic of the blinding effect this same ideal has for Augustus in
real life, not allowing him to appreciate what he has and who he is. Finally, by tracking Augustus's
ability to play and engage with the game, the reader can track his quick deterioration in body and
spirit, since it is clear even to Augustus that what he always wanted from the game was the action and
valor he eventually finds pointless in his last days.
Peter Van Houten's House
Peter Van Houten moved to Amsterdam after his daughter died and he wrote An Imperial
Affliction based on her life and death. Therefore, his house was set up to be a haven from him,
protecting him from memories of her and from contact by his fans who loved the book written
for/about her and thus remind him of her as well. After living there for 18 years, his house looks
almost un-lived in, with almost no clutter, likely because all he seems to do is drink and think.
However, in his living room there are two trash bags of letters from his fans. These trash bags of
letters in an otherwise spotless house represent the facts that he cannot get away from his daughter
and that he doesn't want to. It is as if he has tried to throw them out, even putting them in the trash
bags, but simply cannot let go.
The Fault in Our Stars Metaphors and Similes
"...preternaturally huge, like his whole head was basically
just his fake eye and this real eye staring at you" (Simile)
(p.6)
Like Hazel's oxygen tank drawing stares at the airport, corrections for people's illnesses often draw
even more attention to them. This is further physicalized in Isaac's glasses which, compensating for
his failing eyesight, draw even more attention to his fake eye (and real eye) as if it encompasses his
whole being.

"I'm on a roller coaster that only goes up" (Metaphor) (p.11)

Augustus stays chipper about his diagnosis, both when he seems to be cancer free and when he
relapses, by repeating this metaphorical phrase. Rather than seeing his life as a downward spiral, he
somewhat sarcastically creates imagery of his life going up and up.

"...the tears not like tears so much as a quiet metronome -

steady, endless" (Simile) (p.60)
Green makes an effort to include deep imagery of sadness throughout the book and through the
feelings and actions of different characters. Hazel watches Isaac cope with his girlfriend's dumping
him just before his eye operation - she watches him calmly but this foreshadows her own feelings and
coping with Augustus's death.

"My hair looked like a bird's nest; my shuffling gait like a

dementia patient's" (Simile) (p.108)
Hazel makes two comparisons here: one with a bird's nest, which is a common comparison but a very
different image than hair; and one to a dementia patient, which, as a chronic illness, hits her very close
to home. The contrast between these two images creates a tone of youthful and somehow aged
sadness.

"The sun was a toddler insistently refusing to go to bed: It

was past eight thirty and still light" (Metaphor) (p.167)
This metaphor is a good example of the youthful, intelligent voice Green writes for Hazel. She is
someone who notices things, experiences things, and appreciates things. It further serves to
emphasize how young she is, though in the moment she notices this (at a fancy dinner with Augustus
in Amsterdam) she is allowed to act more adult than perhaps ever in her life.
The Fault in Our Stars Irony
Augustus's Illness (Dramatic Irony)
The irony of Augustus's sudden illness and decline over the second half of the book is clear and heart
wrenching. Hazel thought until late on their Amsterdam trip that her illness was the reason they
shouldn't be together, fearing that she, a "grenade," could die and hurt him. In the end, he's the one
who is ill and dies, leaving her behind and hurting; but she realizes that she would have had it no
other way, just as her parents promise they feel about her. Augustus was right about the inevitability
of their being together, but was not able to be the one strong by her side like he would have chosen. In
the end, though Hazel fears paralleling his prior girlfriend, he parallels her, fighting against his illness
and against himself.

Isaac and Monica (Dramatic Irony)

A comical, and soon tragic, example of irony is shown in the early scene of Isaac and Monica making
out aggressively against the church in which the support group is held. On one hand, there is an ironic
intermingling of the minor theme of religion with a major theme of the passion of both young love,
going hand in hand with Hazel's ironic tone toward the support group and hackneyed sayings of its
leader and of Gus's parents. However, the tragedy of their relationship comes in with the irony of
Isaac and Monica's word "always" which soon is shown to be clearly false when Monica breaks up
with Isaac and refuses to visit him, unable to cope with his illness.

Post-Death Facebook Posts (Dramatic Irony)

There is ample irony in the Facebook posts that Hazel finds on Caroline's wall, affecting her deeply.
Firstly, though people attempt to build up Caroline's life through talking about her strength and
bravery in her final fight against cancer, Hazel understands that this makes it seem like the only things
she ever was or did were about cancer rather than about her life or anything else. Secondly, because
the posts can't reach the person and the people posting were often people who hadn't come to see her
or been able to relate to her once she was diagnosed, especially because of what her brain tumors did
to her personality, the posts are obviously for some kind of personal gain or comfort. These ironies,
not recognized by the people posting, cause Hazel to despair about her own life and death, especially
the way people will remember her.

Hazel's Mother's Shower Panic (Dramatic Irony)

A short burst of dramatic irony allows Green to momentarily focus on the life of parents of children
with cancer in the scene in which Hazel receives a letter from Peter von Houten's secretary about
their upcoming trip and Hazel's mother leaps wet and panicked from the shower upon Hazel's yell.
Because we know that Hazel is safe and even happy, we see an even more stark contrast to Hazel's
mother's fearful expectation, revealing that she constantly must be vigilant for the worst.
The Fault in Our Stars Imagery
Caroline
The character Caroline, Augustus's prior girlfriend who died of a brain tumor that changed her
personality and ability to control her emotions as her illness progressed, is formed entirely from a few
conversations between Augustus and Hazel and what Hazel is able to read publicly on Facebook. Even
with this limited information, Green creates a terrifying, enthralling, and tragic image of Caroline.
Imagery of what cancer can do to a person is, obviously, rampant in The Fault in Our Stars, but
Caroline's case is perhaps more gruesome than any of the other cases of cancer in the book because of
its influence over her emotions, personality, and relationships. Even more than hurting people after
you're gone, as Hazel fears, Caroline's case personifies the hurting of people before you go.

Amsterdam
Neither Hazel or Augustus have had the ability to travel much, as both were diagnosed with cancer in
their early adolescence which saps away the ability to go far from one's doctors and much of the funds
of a family. Now that they are able to take the trip, Hazel shows a first look at Amsterdam to the reader
with amazing imagery. The night that Hazel and Augustus go to Oranjee, Hazel thinks and converses at
length about the canals, pedestrians, petal "confetti" (p.163) in the air, the slow descent of the sun, the
"bottled stars" (p.163) of champagne, and more, creating a rich and welcoming background for some
of the difficult scenes at this turning point in the book.

The World of "Cancer Kids"

Green introduces Hazel's world to the reader through a trip to Support Group. She explains the
nuances of competition for health, displays of health level through using the stairs or elevator, the
process of interacting with a "support group" one does not feel particularly connected to, and even
minutia such as what kind of cheap snacks and drinks are provided. Throughout the book, Hazel's
story allows a deep immersion into the world of youths with cancer, from the ecstatic moments of
finding other people who understand your pain and frustration to the soul-sucking boredom of lying
in an ICU bed waiting to be healthy enough to go home.

Water and Drowning

From the dark fluid draining from Hazel's chest to a bag to a dream in which she is "alone and boatless
in a huge lake" (p.301) to the T. S. Eliot poem that reads “We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
/ By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown / Till human voices wake us, and we drown”
(p.164). Even Green's epigraph, a quotation from An Imperial Affliction and therefor written by
Green himself, takes place at the ocean and compares water and time. Hazel once almost died by
drowning within herself, and rather than a drowning at sea this fluid also deoxygenates her blood and
causes incredible pain. The imagery of water throughout the story parallels Hazel's fear of drowning
due to her body's condition, even when water is depicted in beautiful, calming circumstances like in
the canals of Amsterdam
The Fault in Our Stars Esther Earl

The Fault in Our Stars is dedicated to Esther Earl. However, it is clear from Green's Author's Note
that he does not wish the public to read the book as if it were based directly on Esther's life. Green has
written on his Tumblr, "I don’t want people conflating Esther with Hazel (they’re very different), and
it’s extremely important to me that I not claim to be telling Esther’s story." Green drew inspiration for
Hazel's story from his experiences and conversations with Esther as well as experiences working as a
chaplain at a children's hospital and from relationships with his wife and son. Because it is clear that
Green's friendship with Esther greatly affected the writing of the book, it is important to understand
their relationship and her life. Furthermore, her life, and the response of her parents, Green, and
Nerdfighteria after her death is an inspiring look at the real effects of cancer in youths.
Esther was a young American writer and vlogger active in the Nerdfighters (a community created by
John and Hank Green) and the Harry Potter Alliance. At the age of 12, in 2006, Esther was diagnosed
with metastasized papillary thyroid cancer, and a year later doctors declared that it was terminal. She
remained active in these online communities, meeting Green in person at least once and continuing an
online friendship with him for three years. Esther died August 25, 2010 at age 16.

Green and the Nerdfighter community started a remembrance to her on August 3, 2011, which would
have been Esther's next birthday. The day was called Esther Day and, in accordance with Esther's
wishes, it was celebrated as a day about love between friends and family. John's eulogy upon Esther's
death and his videos on Esther Day in the years after can be found on the Vlogbrothers YouTube
channel.

Esther's family also started a non-profit, publicized by Green and the Vlogbrothers, called This Star
Won't Go Out (http://tswgo.org/), which "is making a difference in the lives of children with cancer,
one family at a time. By providing funds to help pay for travel, a mortgage or rent check, and other
cost of living expenses, TSWGO frees up families to focus on their child who is in treatment."

Finally, Esther’s parents posthumously published a book of her writings, titled This Star Won't Go
Out: The Life and Words of Esther Grace Earl. Green wrote an introduction to this book. The
book won the 2014 Goodreads Choice Award in "Memoir & Autobiography." The book contains a
biography of Esther's life, short pieces of writing, journal entries, and drawings.
The Fault in Our Stars Literary Elements
Genre
Young Adult Fiction

Setting and Context

Indiana and Amsterdam, 2010s

Narrator and Point of View

Hazel narrates the story in first person.

Tone and Mood

The book, though concerned with cancer and death at a young age, keeps a
humorous, witty, and chipper tone throughout most of the story, though it has
moments of realistic sorrow.

Protagonist and Antagonist

Hazel is the story's protagonist. Though it could be argued that cancer is the story's
antagonist, Hazel herself argues that this is not the case.

Major Conflict
Hazel does not want to get into a relationship with Augustus because she fears that
she will hurt him if her illness worsens and/or she dies. However, this conflict is
shifted and intensified when Augustus's cancer returns worse than ever before.

Climax
Augustus asks Hazel and Isaac to hold a funeral for him that he is able to attend.
They hold it in the room where they met at support group and Isaac and Hazel both
give heartfelt eulogies. A week later, Gus dies and Hazel is left to cope for the
remainder of the story.

Foreshadowing
The return of Gus's illness is foreshadowed by the loud fight he has with his parents
just before leaving for Amsterdam and by the pain and instability he shows
throughout the beginning of their trip.

Understatement
N/A.

Allusions
Green makes many allusions to classic literature, poetry, and art. Most notably, the
title of the book is an allusion to the play "Julius Caesar" by Shakespeare.
Imagery
Green, though an adult himself, writes his teenage characters with incredible care
toward the complexity of their emotion and thought. Their lives and mental spaces
are full of imagery, created linguistically through complex concepts explained, in
most cases, in fairly simple vocabulary.

Paradox
N/A.

Parallelism
N/A.

Metonymy and Synecdoche

N/A.

Personification
Hazel and Augustus both personify elements of their illness - Hazel her oxygen tank
and Augustus his prosthetic leg.
The Fault in Our Stars Links
John Green: New York Times Bestselling Author
http://johngreenbooks.com/
John Green's official website.

This Star Won't Go Out

http://tswgo.org/
Website for Esther Earl's non-profit, which supports families of children with cancer.

Vlogbrothers YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers
John and Hank Green's YouTube channel.
The Fault in Our Stars Essay Questions
1. 1
What is the role of love in The Fault in Our Stars? In other words, why did
Green make The Fault in Our Stars a love story?
Hazel is very smart; she has seen and felt a lot of things. However, Hazel does not
fully understand love at the beginning of the novel, and begins to throughout the
story, realizing that perhaps pain and joy are more intertwined than she had
deigned to believe. That The Fault in Our Stars is a love story helps Hazel to
understand life, death, and family, and allows The Fault in Our Stars to be a
coming of age story in terms of the discovery of self emotionally and sexually
rather than focusing all of the story's content on coping with cancer.
2. 2
What is the importance of John Green having created the most central
book(s) to the characters in the story? What is the impact of having an
epigraph from a fictional work?
Creating the books within The Fault in Our Stars, An Imperial Affliction and The
Price of Dawn, allows Green complete control over the plots, characters, and
themes in them so that he can leverage these allusions to precisely parallel and
add to the themes already in the larger work. For example, the fact that Anna, the
main character of An Imperial Affliction, is a young girl with cancer who does not
want to let this fact define her entire life parallels Hazel's situation and causes
Hazel to find empathy and connection in the book. Furthermore, Green is able to
create a fictional author who demonstrates that authors don't always write
directly from reality and aren't always the way you think they'll be. Having a
fictional epigraph is the same - it allows Green to write exactly what he wants as
an epigraph, strategically placing it, as with all epigraphs, to foreground themes
that will be developed throughout the book. The epigraph talks about water and
time, two incredibly important things to Hazel because she feels that she has too
much of one and too little of the other. This stresses the symbolic imagery of
water throughout the book, which ties into lack of agency in relation to illness
and time.
3. 3
How do the characters in The Fault in Our Stars deal with the fear and pain
of living with cancer, and losing loved ones to it? Does the book seem to
suggest that there is one ideal way to deal with illness and death?
The characters in The Fault in Our Stars hold very different views on the meaning
of life and how to deal with cancer and death. Two contrasting points of view
brought to attention are those of Augustus, who believes that he must
accomplish something tangible to have lived a good life and die a dignified death,
and Hazel, who wants to live doing as little harm to others and the world as
possible. Because Augustus is unable to live up to his high aspirations, lofty and
nebulous as they are, Green seems to be criticizing this point of view. However,
Hazel's point of view does not go unchallenged either, as she learns the value of
allowing oneself to be hurt and hurt others in the pursuit of living while one can.
4. 4
Is The Fault in Our Stars problematic in any way as a novel? How?
As one critic mentioned, Green's profiting from the stories of sick teens could be
seen as offensive to some readers, specifically those sick teens on whose behalf
he is trying to speak. However, Green did his research during his time as a
chaplain at a children's hospital and through his relationship with Esther Earl
and others. More pressing, however, is that the book does not accurately
represent the struggles with money that many families have when a child, or any
family member, is ill. The fact that the parents in the book seem to all be loving,
upper-middle class, white, suburban, and Christian does not do justice to the
struggle of many teens whose lack of agency due to age and illness is intensified
by familial, economic, and other problems. This is a problem with the book that
Green should have addressed in attempting to write for a broader audience of
youths and instill them with a sense of the true impact of childhood cancer.
5. 5
As usually occurs in young adult literature, the main character (Hazel)
grows, learns, and changes over the course of the novel. In what ways does
Hazel change, and in what ways does she stay the same?
Though she understands a lot about literature and even more about pain, Hazel
does not understand a lot about the nature of love at the beginning of the novel.
Hazel's relationships with Augustus and with her parents allow her to explore
love relationships (both romantic and familial) and how they may make more
complex the interplay of love and pain that make up life and death. Though the
story begins and ends with Hazel thinking alone, attending Support Group,
spending time with her parents, and celebrating wacky holidays, along the way
she has learned even more to value relationships and their ability to bring joy
even with the looming potential of causing some harm.
6. 6
What is the importance of Peter Van Houten as a character in The Fault in
Our Stars? What does he represent and how does he affect Hazel?
Peter Van Houten, the author of An Imperial Affliction, the book within a book
in The Fault in Our Stars, is nothing like Anna imagines him to be. Though he did
base his book on real life to some extent, his reality is much sadder and having
written the book does not allow him to truly cope with or escape from the death
of his daughter. Van Houten, though disappointing to Hazel at first, does instill
her with some important ideas, including the fact that you cannot go looking for
answers about a book outside of what you're given (and, perhaps expanding
further, you cannot go looking for meaning in life outside of what is given to you).
7. 7
Choose one of the poems mentioned in the novel. Why did Green choose to
include that poem in the novel? How does it contribute to themes, imagery,
and meaning in the book as a whole?
 Hazel recites part of the T.S. Eliot poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” to
Augustus when they eat dinner at Oranjee in Amsterdam. The lines she recites
are: “We have lingered in the chambers of the sea / By sea-girls wreathed with
seaweed red and brown / Till human voices wake us, and we drown” (p.164).
This poem speaks of awareness ("human voices wake us"), water and drowning,
and time ("lingered"), which are all important themes in The Fault in Our Stars.
Furthermore, Hazel's love for books and poetry in general represent a certain
escapism, not wanting to harm or affect other people and so retreating into the
world of authors, fiction, and poetry for comfort and kinship.
8. 8
What might have been difficult about adapting The Fault in Our Stars into a
movie? How should a director deal with adapting rich and sensitive works
of literature for the big screen?
The Fault in Our Stars has done incredibly well both as a novel and a movie. This
is because everyone who has worked on the two projects has been focused on
translating the story with reality, humility, sensitivity, and a bit of comedy.
Choosing actors to play Haze and Augustus is also very important because the
trio's nuanced brand of comedy, wit, and bursts of emotion will have to be nailed,
especially in the scenes of romantic tension which cannot be portrayed as the
same as just any other young adult romantic comedy when the stakes are as high
as they are.
The Fault in Our Stars Quiz 1
1. 1Who is the main character in "The Fault in Our Stars"?
MADDY
AUGUSTUS
HAZEL
JOHN
2. 2Who is the author of "The Fault in Our Stars"?
JK ROWLING
JODI PICOULT
JOHN GREEN
JOHN GRISHAM
3. 3To whom is "The Fault in Our Stars" dedicated?
MARCOS CISNEROS
HAZEL LANCASTER
HANK GREEN
ESTHER EARL
4. 4What does Green warn in his Author's Note?
THAT JOY DOES NOT COME FROM PAIN
THAT THE BOOK IS FOR YOUNG ADULTS
THAT THE BOOK WILL BE SAD
THAT THE BOOK IS FICTIONAL
5. 5Why does Hazel's mom send her to Support Group?
SHE THINKS SHE IS DEPRESSED
SHE WANTS HER TO BE MORE RELIGIOUS
SHE WANTS HER TO MAKE MORE FRIENDS
SHE THINKS SHE HAS CANCER
6. 6Who is the leader of Support Group?
PATRICK
PETER VAN HOUTEN
HAZEL'S MOM
AUGUSTUS
7. 7Who brings Augustus to Support Group?
ISAAC
AUGUSTUS'S MOM
HAZEL
AUGUSTUS'S DAD
8. 8What is a "cannula"?
A TUBE THAT DELIVERS OXYGEN
A TYPE OF DANISH FOOD
 A PRAYER MAT
AN OXYGEN TANK
9. 9What type of cancer does Hazel have?
LUNG
BREAST
THYROID
OVARIAN
10. 10What type of cancer does Isaac have?
EYE
THYROID
LUNG
OSTEOSARCOMA
11. 11What type of cancer does Augustus have?
LUNG
THYROID
TESTICULAR
OSTEOSARCOMA
12. 12At the first Support Group meeting of the book, what does Augustus say he
fears?
DESTINY
LOVE
OBLIVION
DEATH
13. 13What is the name of Isaac's girlfriend?
HAZEL
CAROLINE
KAITLYN
MONICA
14. 14What movie do Augustus and Hazel watch the first time she goes to his
house?
"AN IMPERIAL AFFLICTION"
"V FOR VENDETTA"
"300"
"THE PRICE OF DAWN"
15. 15What drug has helped shrink Hazel's tumors?
GARDASIL
PHALANXIFOR
PROZAC
AFINITOR
16. 16What is Hazel's favorite book?
"AN IMPERIAL AFFLICTION"
"INFINITE MAYHEM"
"THE PRICE OF DAWN"
"V FOR VENDETTA"
17. 17What is Augustus's favorite book?
"THE PRICE OF DAWN"
"V FOR VENDETTA"
"INFINITE MAYHEM"
"AN IMPERIAL AFFLICTION"
18. 18Who is the author of Hazel's favorite book?
JOHN WATERS
AUGUSTUS WATERS
JOHN GREEN
PETER VAN HOUTEN
19. 19What is the name of Hazel's friend from high school?
AUGUSTUS
FRANNIE
KATIE
KAITLYN
20. 20What is the name of the main character in "An Imperial Affliction"
PETER
KAITLYN
KATIE
ANNA
21. 21What does Augustus tell Isaac to do when he's upset about Monica breaking
up with him?
COME WITH THEM TO AMSTERDAM
CALM DOWN
BREAK TROPHIES
GO FOR A DRIVE
22. 22What does NEC mean?
NATAL EMISSION OF CANCER
NOT EVEN COUNTING
NOM EMUS CONTINUUM
NO EVIDENCE OF CANCER
23. 23What did Hazel use up her "Wish" on?
MEETING PETER VAN HOUTEN IN AMSTERDAM
GOING TO DISNEY WORLD AND EPCOT CENTER
 GOING TO PARIS, FRANCE
SHE WAS TOO OLD TO RECEIVE ONE
24. 24What color are the flowers that Augustus surprises Hazel with?
YELLOW
RED
ORANGE
PINK
25. 25What is the name of Augustus's prior girlfriend?
FRANNIE
MONICA
CAROLINE
KAITLYN

The Fault in Our Stars Quiz 2

1. 1What is Isaac and Monica's "word"?
STARS
OKAY
ALWAYS
LOVE

The Fault in Our Stars Quiz 3

1. 1What does Gus believe there is after you die?
HELL
HEAVEN
SOMETHING
NOTHING

The Fault in Our Stars Quiz 4

1. 1What does Hazel tuck into Gus's coffin?
A PACK OF CIGARETTES
A CELL PHONE
A NOTECARD THAT SAYS "OKAY"
A LETTER FROM PETER VAN HOUTEN
The Fault in Our Stars Sources and ClassicNote Author
▪ Madeline Cohen , author of ClassicNote. Completed on August 18, 2015,
copyright held by GradeSaver.
▪ Updated and revised by Aaron Suduiko January 26, 2016. Copyright held by
GradeSaver.
▪ John Green. The Fault in Our Stars. New York, New York: Penguin, 2012.
▪ "Rotten Tomatoes: The Fault in Our Stars." 8/22/2015.
<http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_fault_in_our_stars/>.
▪ John Green. "John Green - New York Times Best Seller." 8/22/2015.
<http://johngreenbooks.com/>.
▪ Alanna Bennet. "Is Peter Van Houten's 'Imperial Affliction' a Real Book? Here's
What You Need To Know About John Green's Creations." Bustle.com. June 6,
2014. 8/22/2015. <http://www.bustle.com/articles/26735-is-peter-van-
houtens-imperial-affliction-a-real-book-heres-what-you-need-to-know-about>.
▪ "This Star Won't Go Out." 8/22/2015. <http://tswgo.org/esthers-story.html>.
▪ "Shakespeare Quotes." 8/22/2015. <http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-
quotes/fault-dear-brutus-our-stars>.