The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

Available from Amazon in Hardcover for $8.99

Buy it if: You are over the age of 14

Don’t Buy it if:  You are overly prone to tears.  It could get you.

            I finally picked up The Fault In Our Stars, which has been sitting patiently on my desk - a recommendation by one of you, dear readers – and slid it into my carry-on.  On my flight to London last week, I turned the first the page. Flying home three days, it has gone back in the bag, sadly complete.

            I wish I had not waited so long.  Truly.  I say the following with no hint of hyperbole or metaphor: I can find no fault with this book.  This is not to say that everyone will enjoy it.  Or that everyone should enjoy it.  I only mean this in the most literal sense.  There is nothing about Jon Green’s words that invite improvement.  While there may be no perfect work of art, it’s led me to believe art can – very rarely – have perfect execution.  To admit this as a possibility feels like a bit of a critical cop-out, but there it is.   And I believe it.

            But, let me back up.  There is a good chance that if you are over the age of 18, no one is even trying to sell you this book.  Oh sure, it was a New York Times Bestseller (but these days doesn’t it practically need to be in order receive the real commitment of actual paper and ink?) and you may occasionally glance it on your Amazon homepage (if you’re not too busy frantically searching for that perfectly whimsical birthday gift that also happens to include free “Prime” shipping)  Even then, it’s certain to be grouped almost literally below our line of sight in the s“Young Adult Fiction” category.

            Do understand, the book is focused on a few young adults, written from the perspective of a 16-year-old cancer patient and set squarely in their world.  To be sure, it quite literally is fiction about young adults. 

            But here is why applying that label is false – a disservice even – to those of us beyond legal drinking age. The feeling, thoughts and emotions of the 16-year-olds of this world are every bit as real, complex and present as they are to those of us with a few gray hairs.  It sounds obvious to say, but as we get older, it just naturally becomes harder to believe.  A longer history of emotional highs and lows is to blame, I think.

So far removed, how many adults have really succeeded in capturing that perspective?  Not equivocally, but realistically.  Hardly any at all, I say.  And to the degree that Jon Green does - with certainty - none that I have read.  It took something as genuine as The Fault In Our Stars to make it apparent how many similar attempts are found wanting.  Maybe a master like Judy Blume invites comparison, but with her aim at a younger audience, it’s tough to say.

            Yet the voice of Hazel Grace, 16-year-old cancer patient, is delivered seamlessly, wholly and accurately.  How can I know?  I guess I can’t.  But I still feel certain that I do.  It is the highest compliment I can pay the author without fear that I will fall short of conveying how unerringly transparent that voice is.

            I can understand if some of you might still be wary.   For anyone born post-1990, this book deploys effective camouflage, but it is absolutely worth the chance. I implore that you seek it out.  At 250 pages or so, there are few better investments of time you can make this year.

One Day by David Nicholls

$11.50 in Paperback from Amazon

(or you could rent the movie.  For once, it holds up…but read the book.  Really.)

Buy it if: Nicholas Sparks makes you feel physically ill, but you’re not opposed a decent long-term relationship story.  You’d just prefer it be well-written and not dripping in saccharine.

Don’t Buy it if: You think what I just wrote is sacrilege.  Or you like Tom Clancy

            The story of young lovers drifting in and out of each others’ lives has been beaten to death more often than Stephen King novels have been optioned for movie rights.  It’s an old premise.  A good one.  A relatable one.  But definitely not an original one.  And I’m willing to bet more dreck has been created by mediocre scribblers pining for lost young love than deserves to have ever been committed to the written page.

            And yet, One Day has something to it.  It’s tempting to say it’s the premise (July 15^th is the only day captured in the prose.  The author leaves events from the other 364 to allusions and brief flashbacks.  Nothing that “happens” in the book avoids the rarely heralded St. Swithins Day) but that’s only a device.  There’s something real captured in the mundane details of lives that plow steadily through the ordinary and banal.  

            Clearly, there’s a bit of poetic happenstance in play, but the repetition of the date is cleverly downplayed.   Sure, you could focus on the odds of one day being so repeatedly important, but I’m willing to bet you won’t.  The story is such that it serves to distract from the simple premise.

            All told, David Nicholls handles the reality of life and relationships better than most, and the story would have been strong told through a traditional arc.  But method of delivery really makes the story of Emma and Dex something oddly…familiar.  It mournful and joyful.  It’s touching for the familiarities of ordinary life inherent to the couple’s story.  

            Ironically, One Day the movie follows the book so closely that you could skip the written word entirely and get nearly the whole story.  But you shouldn’t.  Like life, the details matter.  And this is one worth a few extra hours’ involvement.