Can a short life be a full life? And if you knew your days were numbered, would you be the one with the courage to make it the bigger than you imagined possible?
When author John Green writes about Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters in the The Fault in Our Stars, you might be tempted to think this is just a tragic love story about lives cut short. Afterall, the 16-year-old narrator Hazel, has been battling thyroid cancer since age 13 and the two meet in a cancer support group.
So what is the story? I think book reviewer Rebecca Rosen said it best: This is a book that breaks your heart -- not by wearing it down, but by making it bigger and bigger until it bursts. As Hazel says:
“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.”
So go ahead, read the book, and go see the movie. And make a toast to "Good life."
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