The Fault in Our Stars

Yesterday was a terrible day for me. Even a bit today. Even though people die everyday, when you really think about death, the whole notion of not existing anymore, it scares you. Like Gus, you fear oblivion. 

I try not to think too much about negativity, think of positivity. There's a sadness, a melancholy. But it's not depressing. It's the kind that is more poignant and romanticized, like the sadness from a Midsummer Night's dream that Shakespeare talks about, or like the sadness in not being able to name someone like in the poem that hipster sister likes so much. 

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I had some time yesterday to be engulfed in this sadness. I read the Fault in Our Stars. I have heard so many good things about this book and it didn't disappoint me even in the slightest. It was so tear jerking, heartwarming, falling in and out of love. Hazel and Gus make you think of life in ways you never chose to. Sometimes I think about stories and people around me, and I want to know their story, how it ends, what happens. But I never try. I never think of asking. Hazel and Gus did, and maybe it disappointed them, and maybe from that disappointment, they got some contentment. 

The book was so well written. I fell in love with the words, the people, the okays. There was this one line that Augustus often used, "I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasures of speaking true things" which I really liked. Sometimes I wish my life was that poignant. That some silences meant more than words itself, that the light humour was nice, that the way the stars danced in the night I could see. 

Reading is the closest to this feeling. In reading, I find pleasure, laughter and sadness. Maybe it'll go away and I'll soon be a part of universe itself. Maybe I'll stop thinking of this story and how it had affected me so much. Maybe one day, it'll all be back to normal. The thing is, I don't know what normal is anymore. I'm so conflicted between the demons in myself, I don't think I can ever stay. 

But yes, I'd recommend this book to everyone. It's so hauntingly beautiful. So simple yet so strange. So fun yet so otherwise. Maybe it'll make you think a bit more, maybe not. But yes, reading it feels nice. 

Rating: 5 stars.