The book for the March Peanut Butter Fingers Book Club was The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. I’ve read and loved previous John Green novels, so I was eager to read this one. And I was not disappointed! This is a beautiful, heartbreaking, honest, incredibly moving book about love, loss, and the bittersweet ephemeral quality of life.
This was one of those books I could not put down but simultaneously did not want to end. The characters felt like real people. I was entirely invested in their lives and their emotions. I’ll warn you, this book is sad — the main character is a teenage girl with terminal cancer — but I was surprised by the many moments of humor and hope. This is a heartbreaking, but ultimately joyous and uplifting, read.
Instead of a traditional review, I decided to pull some of my favorite quotes from the book to share with you:
- “I started scrolling through the pictures on my phone, a backward flip-book of the last few months, beginning with him and Isaac outside of Monica’s house and ending with the first picture I’d taken of him, on the drive to Funky Bones. It seemed like forever ago, like we’d had this brief but still infinite forever. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.” -pg. 233
- “I would probably never again see the ocean from thirty thousand feet above, so far up that you can’t make out the waves or any boats, so that the ocean is a great and endless monolith. I could imagine it. I could remember it. But I couldn’t see it again, and it occurred to me that the voracious ambition of humans is never sated by dreams coming true, because there is always the thought that everything might be done better and again.” – pg. 305
- “She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get 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.” -pg. 313
Read this book. {Maybe not on a plane or public bus, as you will likely weep while reading, if you are anything like me.} But yes, read this book! You will be glad you did.
Till soon,
Dallas
previous book club posts:
– Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
– The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
– The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
– Blackberry Winter by Sarah Jio
Day-By-Day Masterpiece 