Some things don't have to be big in order to be beautiful. A miniature can be as much of a masterpiece as a large canvas. A short sentence can be as striking as a long and developed one. Simple slangish words can be as philosophical as Kant's quotes.
In this quite small book we meet with quite a small world of people who must be, who are doomed to be unhappy. Yet are they unhappy? Both yes and no. No, because they are alive: they can walk in the parks, re-read for a millionth time their favourite book, save the world in a videogame, and fall in love. Yes, because they are alive just for now.
What does it feel like - to be a young adult, yet to know that you will not become an adult? That your days, which you thought were endless, are actually numbered?.. Yet here the author breaks the stereotypes: you won't find here people who are depressive and shy of their illness, who just 'fight bravely' and 'never give up'. You will find teenagers who are sarcastic about their doomed fate and who live their life to the full while they can - or at least they try to do it. Mostly, they succeed.
A classical variant: She was ill and she was downcast, she had no life outside the walls of her home. Until she met him. Although she still can't breathe without machinery, she got a breeze of fresh air in her life with his coming. And it is reciprocal. They are both marked by a disease and maybe that's why together they feel like they are whole again. Maybe it would be insufficient but for the similary of tempers, of disposition, even the sacrasm and bits of black humour. And their readiness to make sacrifices - not only in videogames.
The essentials about the heroes don't change throughout the book, their tempers and characters are the same. Yet we see changes in their feelings and moods and relations. We see their teenagerish attitude in some situations and uncommonly wise acts in others. We get used to them and sort of befriend them. So more is our pain at the final separation with them.
A few more words about the narration. I really liked the way J.Green leaves some evident and non-evident clues and comparisons in his text. It is like exploring a gold mine - every other chapter casts a different light on the plot and shows some relation to another thoughts and ideas. Like when Hazel compares Amsterdam to her own lungs. Or 'Augustus', who dreamed of great deeds and feared oblivion, derives from Latin meaning 'great' & 'venerable' - and to cap it all, is now a Dutch name. Or this hidden comparison of scrambled eggs and cancer survivors: Maybe scrambled eggs are ghettoized, but they're also special.
In some way, love is "a shout in the void" and so is our life. We are warned from the beginning that it will not last forever. Yet we live and we love, generations after generations. It's like seasons of the year - always moving, always changing. So we must try not to be sad - but to observe and marvel. Because universe wants to be noticed.
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