I had heard such amazing things about this book and I knew so many people who had read it that I felt rather left out, so I asked for it for Christmas, got it, and I have now managed to finish it in about two days because it was so goddamn good.
First off lets just talk about Gus, although the nickname reminds me of the fat mouse from Cinderella, the character reminds me of a realistic Prince Charming. His metaphors are brilliantly poetic, his personality is perfectly imperfect, he is enchanting, intelligent, hilarious, and so real in his own fictional way. I cried so much when he died, and I am crying just thinking about it.
Van Houten, oh Van Houten. When Gus and Hazel first encountered him he was the douchiest douche in doucheville, and I truly believed that he was the sad, lonely, and permanently intoxicated old git that the book made him out to be, but then I discovered the truth. He was kind of a douche, he was in fact sad, and he was truly lonely, but his loss was what had turned him into this pitiful creature, and the sadness behind his story was so beautiful that it was heartbreaking.
I found Issac really quite charming, I don't particularly know why, I just did. I think it was something in the way that he was naive enough to believe Monica when she said 'always', or maybe it was the way that he threw a half blind tantrum on the night of the broken trophies, but I really loved his character.
The last character that I want to talk about is Hazel, of course, but she is just so different to any other character that I have ever come across, and she is totally different to how I thought she may be. She did not wish to make her mark on the world by creating a charity for kids with Cancer, she just wanted to live in her own little infinity, which sadly ended up being a larger infinity than her star-crossed lovers infinity was. I loved how determined she was to not cry in front of others because she didn't want to force her pain onto them, but was still real enough in her strength that when times got really tough she did break down. And I loved how she was such an ordinary girl, living an pretty ordinary life, there was no big break for her, she got a few days of pure happiness in Amsterdam before her world came crashing down around her, she didn't make a mark on the world, but she made a mark on Gus's tragically small infinity without even truly meaning to, and she loved the love of her life to a battle that should have been won for him, but was lost in the end. She was beautiful, real, and a truly incredible character.
And then there was the writing, the beautifully unpredictable plot, the imaginative metaphors and beliefs that I would quite happily put on pillows or plaques all around my house, and the incredibly intelligent way that John Green phrased things that left me rereading them to make myself understand the words and the way that they were put together, I have never read any other book that so perfectly worded absolutely everything. For a while I thought that the story was a little random in the way that it described the minuscule things in Hazel's life, but then I realized that those minuscule things were beautiful in their own right because they made up Hazel's own little infinity, and they helped to shape the story into one that seemed so breathtakingly real.
Bottom line, I was thoroughly impressed with this book, and I do admire John Green because he must have an impeccable number of highly functional brain cells to write in the way that he does, and I can't wait to read more of his books
