The Ludicrous Self-Inflicted Pain Of This Impossibly Saddening Book

I wanted to not cry when Augustus Waters died. I wanted that. I even knew that he would die before I read the book (the fault of a friend announcing it at school). And for whatever reason, I read it anyways. But now that I sit here, having just read the last sentence of “The Fault In Our Stars”, I know that there was virtually no way to even try to prepare myself, let alone excessively prepare myself. The physical hurt that he left behind, is so unbelievably ripping, that I felt gutted and impossibly betrayed, after reading the simplest of sentences.

I guess this is me ranting. I guess that this is my childish, and inevitably shallow yell into the void about how it unfeelingly tore me to shreds. But maybe I need this. Maybe as I sit here, I should share this with you. This utter demonic pain, eating at my heart.

The tears that ran down my face, and settled on the page I read, must have looked so masochistically stupid, that even I would have rolled my eyes. But no one can know the absolute, agony of the way John Green’s writing tears, until they have read this book.

And I sat there. And I read. I read, and I cried, and I read and cried some more, until I reached the end of the book. And I read the letter that Augustus Waters wrote to Peter Van Houten, and the last two sentences of Hazel’s thoughts. And I let it get to me. I didn’t put up my walls, and I didn’t clench my teeth, and look at the ceiling, just like Augustus does when he’s fighting not to cry.

There’s nothing like letting yourself cry. It feels like with every shudder, or rattling breath, every welled up tear, and every quivering lip; that what’s finally bearing your consciousness, is slightly slipping away. And I thought after crying for twenty minutes, I would be fine. That I would read the best of this stupid, stupid book, and I would be fine. I would be, okay.

I’ve never been more wrong in my life. I read the rest of the book, as promised, and I sobbed, the whole way through.  The ache of a completely fictional, and not even remotely real, character dying, was torture. It was as if John Green, (you stupid, stupid author) had, if not wholly, but partially immersed you in nothing but Hazel’s world. And it’s your way of almost living vicariously through Hazel. You feel the same burn of loss, the smarting prick of every bittersweet memory. And I feel like helping Isaac, and I feel like fixing Augustus, and I feel like screaming at the world about it’s complete and utter unfairness.

The worst part for me, I think was the utter torment of the premonition that I knew, that Augustus Waters was going to die. And the more I read, the more I fell in love with him (undoubtedly so did every other girl). And I started to want to refuse that reality, to change the fate that had already been done. And it was ultimately ridiculous, because I was denying the very words that had been printed on paper, and glued into this book. And yet, I kept hoping. And hoping, and clinging so hard to that one smidgen of hope: the fact that osteosarcoma was highly curable. It was an absurd detail to clutch to myself, but I did anyway. Because though I knew the outcome, I still had the craving of changing it.

So somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind, a sickeningly masochistic want to finish this book had arisen, and once an idea is formed, it never goes away. And I read it to the end. You might wonder why such a brainless, and self-inflicting ideal formed, and why I even fulfilled it.

Because John Green is worth it. That’s the answer. However much you hate him, and however much I hate him, you can’t deny the fact, that he had the strongest of grips on your heart. And you couldn’t resist that hurricane of self-inflicting pain, and you got swept up in it. And that’s why you read it to the end. Because John Green is worth it.

So when someone tells you to read it, please do. I know it must sound so exhaustingly disappointing and unfulfilling, but the honest truth is? It’s so subtle in it’s allure for pain. You know it’s there. John Green said it best, “Pain demands to be felt.” You know the pain is there, and you read it because it’s worth it. So when I tell you the utmost truth (being that I bawled like an emotionally unstable fifteen year old girl getting over a break-up, and cocooned myself in a dressing gown to sniffle over fictional characters) maybe, just maybe, you’ll see the potential goodness in the book.

So I guess, through all the pain and tears, all the boxes of tissues it took to get through the book, I do recommend it. A book close to heart, that’s what it is. And when I see my title again, yes it is ludicrous, and yes, it is ridiculously self-inflicted, but the impossible sadness of the book is what draws people in. Because we need just a touch of sadness in our lives. And then after that, you’re reminded of the vibrant glow that life once had, and you think, you’re on a rollercoaster that only goes up.

Okay?

Okay.