Book Club Essay: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Book Club Question: How are a character's decisions affected by the situations they are put in, and how does that relate to decisions we make in everyday life?

       In The Fault In Our Stars, there are many different depressing situations that each character was put in.  Each character was confronted with a conflict, either internal or external or both, and was forced to find there own resolution to it.  Each character had their own ways of dealing with these problems and their own ways to escape.  For example Hazel had cancer and would watch lots of TV to escape.  Augustus played lots of video games.  The author of An Imperial Affliction drank.  The author, John Green, showed no mercy when it came to speaking the truth about these fictional characters' feelings and thoughts.  There was no holding back and that is one of the ways that makes this book so relatable and touching.  Everyone experiences sadness and everyone attempts to escape it, even if only for a little while.  Another relatable part of this book is that the characters never find a way to get rid of the pain, they only find a way to live with it.
       I think that Augustus and Hazel, who were both dying, lived very much in the moment.  They weren't sure how much longer they had to live so they made the most of it.  This is also true for their parents.  They didn't know how much longer they had with their children so they tended to give them more freedom and cherish every minute.  Augustus and Hazel enjoyed every moment they had together and never took it for granted.  This is something that many of us who are not dying might need to work on.  It is hard to not take some things in life for granted.  This book shows that even something as simple as having enough oxygen in your lungs should be valued because there are some people that wish only for that.  Towards the end of the book Hazel begins to fully understand how lucky she is to have gotten as much out of life as she had.
       The characters decided to hide things from their loved ones to keep from hurting them.  This is in a way a selfish act that was done with selfless intentions.  They do not want to make each other's life any worse in any way possible because it has already been hard enough.  Though sharing important things with your loved ones even if it might hurt them is almost always the right thing to do.  For example Augustus felt the need to not tell Hazel that he had been diagnosed with cancer almost everywhere in his body.  Hazel's mom kept the fact that she had more to her life then just her daughter with cancer for over a year.  Neither Augustus nor Hazel's mom wanted to hurt her so that's why they kept these things from her.  This is very relatable because everyone hides stuff in their life in order to protect people they care about.  The author of this book used the story of this cancer patient to inspire his readers to live life to the fullest and appreciate every moment.

Reading Response #2 to Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

       I am currently reading Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver.  So far I am really enjoying it.  It is really intriguing and I can't wait to see what happens next.  This book is about a girl who was killed in a car accident.  She "relived" the day of her death everyday for about a week.  The day would always start the same but go differently depending on how her actions changed.  This day was basically repeating itself with drastically different outcomes each time.  I think this was happening in order to help teach Samantha a lesson.  She realized how much what she did affected other people.  She learned that she needed to change her actions.  For example, Samantha and her friends had been bullying this one girl, Juliet Sykes, for years.  They called her names and harassed her a lot.  Then on the day of Sam's death, Juliet would kill herself.  The different way that Samantha acted affected the way she would kill herself.  Samantha learned that she needed to figure out a way to make it right with Juliet and to force her friends to stop bullying her and see what a a kind, beautiful person she is in order to save her life.
       I really like this book because it talks about the issue of bullying in a more interesting way that really connects with the reader.  I think it is books with messages like these that can really make a difference in the way people treat each other and in our society.  It also shows just how drastic of measures is needed to get people to change their ways.  I mean Samantha had to die and repeat this one day over seven times in order to realize how terrible a person she was being to some people.  It took so much just to get her to even think about acting differently.  I predict that she will wake up from this repetition once she has made things right.  I cannot wait to see what will happen next.