The Fault in Our Stars

“‘I fear there is not, my friend, and that you would receive scant encouragement from further encounters with my writing. But to answer

your question: No, I have not written anything else, nor will I. I do not feel that continuing to share my thoughts with readers would benefit either them or me. Thank you again for your generous email.

“‘Yours most sincerely, Peter Van Houten, via Lidewij Vliegenthart.’”

“Wow,” I said. “A re you making this up?”

“Hazel Grace, could I, with my meager intellectual capacities, make up a letter from Peter Van Houten featuring phrases like ‘our

triumphantly digitized contemporaneity’?”

“You could not,” I allowed. “Can I, can I have the email address?”

“Of course,” A ugustus said, like it was not the best gift ever.

I spent the next two hours writing an email to Peter Van Houten. It seemed to get worse each time I rewrote it, but I couldn’t stop myself.

Dear Mr. Peter Van Houten

(c/o Lidewij Vliegenthart),

My name is Hazel Grace Lancaster. My friend A ugustus Waters, who read A n Imperial A ffliction at my recommendation, just received

an email from you at this address. I hope you will not mind that A ugustus shared that email with me.

Mr. Van Houten, I understand from your email to A ugustus that you are not pla

disappointed, but I’m also relieved: I never have to worry whether your next book will live up to the magnificent perfection of the

original. A s a three-year survivor of Stage IV cancer, I can tell you that you got everything right in A n Imperial A ffliction. Or at least you got me right. Your book has a way of telling me what I’m feeling before I even feel it, and I’ve reread it dozens of times.

I wonder, though, if you would mind answering a couple questions I have about what happens after the end of the novel. I

understand the book ends because A

A

etc. A lso, is the Dutch Tulip Man a fraud or does he really love them? What happens to A

they stay together? A nd lastly—I realize that this is the kind of deep and thoughtful question you always hoped your readers would ask—

what becomes of Sisyphus the Hamster? These questions have haunted me for years—and I don’t know how long I have left to get

answers to them.

I know these are not important literary questions and that your book is full of important literary questions, but I would just really like

to know.

A nd of course, if you ever do decide to write anything else, even if you don’t want to publish it, I’d love to read it. Frankly, I’d read

your grocery lists.

Yours with great admiration,

Hazel Grace Lancaster

(age 16)

A fter I sent it, I called A ugustus back, and we stayed up late talking about A n Imperial A ffliction, and I read him the Emily Dickinson poem that Van Houten had used for the title, and he said I had a good voice for reading and didn’t pause too long for the line breaks, and then he told me that the sixth Price of Dawn book, The Blood A pproves, begins with a quote from a poem. It took him a minute to find the book, but finally he read the quote to me. “‘Say your life broke down. The last good kiss / You had was years ago.’”

“Not bad,” I said. “Bit pretentious. I believe Max Mayhem would refer to that as ‘sissy shit.’”

“Yes, with his teeth gritted, no doubt. God, Mayhem grits his teeth a lot in these books. He’s definitely going to get TMJ, if he survives all this combat.” A nd then after a second, Gus asked, “When was the last good kiss you had?”

I thought about it. My kissing—all prediagnosis—had been uncomfortable and slobbery, and on some level it always felt like kids playing

at being grown. But of course it had been a while. “Years ago,” I said finally. “You?”

“I had a few good kisses with my ex-girlfriend, Caroline Mathers.”

“Years ago?”

“The last one was just less than a year ago.”

“What happened?”

“During the kiss?”

“No, with you and Caroline.”

“Oh,” he said. A nd then after a second, “Caroline is no longer suffering from personhood.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I’d known plenty of dead people, of course. But I’d never dated one. I couldn’t even imagine it, really.

“Not your fault, Hazel Grace. We’re all just side effects, right?”

“‘Barnacles on the container ship of consciousness,’” I said, quoting A IA .

“Okay,” he said. “I gotta go to sleep. It’s almost one.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay,” he said.

I giggled and said, “Okay.” A nd then the line was quiet but not dead. I almost felt like he was there in my room with me, but in a way it

was better, like I was not in my room and he was not in his, but instead we were together in some invisible and tenuous third space that

could only be visited on the phone.

“Okay,” he said after forever. “Maybe okay will be our always.”

“Okay,” I said.

It was A ugustus who finally hung up.

Peter Van Houten replied to A ugustus’s email four hours after he sent it, but two days later, Van Houten still hadn’t replied to me. A ugustus assured me it was because my email was better and required a more thoughtful response, that Van Houten was busy writing answers to my

questions, and that brilliant prose took time. But still I worried.

On Wednesday during A merican Poetry for Dummies 101, I got a text from A ugustus:

Isaac out of surgery. It went well. He’s officially NEC.

NEC meant “no evidence of cancer.” A second text came a few seconds later.

I mean, he’s blind. So that’s unfortunate.

That afternoon, Mom consented to loan me the car so I could drive down to Memorial to check in on Isaac.

I found my way to his room on the fifth floor, knocking even though the door was open, and a woman’s voice said, “Come in.” It was a

nurse who was doing something to the bandages on Isaac’s eyes. “Hey, Isaac,” I said.

A nd he said, “Mon?”

“Oh, no. Sorry. No, it’s, um, Hazel. Um, Support Group Hazel? Night-of-the-broken-trophies Hazel?”

“Oh,” he said. “Yeah, people keep saying my other senses will improve to compensate, but CLEA RLY NOT YET. Hi, Support Group Hazel.

Come over here so I can examine your face with my hands and see deeper into your soul than a sighted person ever could.”

“He’s kidding,” the nurse said.

“Yes,” I said. “I realize.”

I took a few steps toward the bed. I pulled a chair up and sat down, took his hand. “Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” he said back. Then nothing for a while.

“How you feeling?” I asked.

“Okay,” he said. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?” I asked. I looked at his hand because I didn’t want to look at his face blindfolded by bandages. Isaac bit his nails, and I could see some blood on the corners of a couple of his cuticles.

“She hasn’t even visited,” he said. “I mean, we were together fourteen months. Fourteen months is a long time. God, that hurts.” Isaac let

go of my hand to fumble for his pain pump, which you hit to give yourself a wave of narcotics.

The nurse, having finished the bandage change, stepped back. “It’s only been a day, Isaac,” she said, vaguely condescending. “You’ve