A Letter to John Green upon finishing his new novel, The Fault in Our Stars

I am going to begin this fan letter with two beginnings, as illogical as that may seem.

1) This will probably get lost in what I'm sure is a sea of fan letters due to TFiOS coming out, but I am going to send it anyway since I just finished it and its 3am and the sleep deprivation and emotion is causing me to have zero reservations (and quite possibly poor editing/grammar).

2) I have never cried so much at a book or movie or song or, to my recent memory, an actual life event.

There are a few reasons your novel had such an impact on me. The biggest one is the fact I have a huge fear of death that causes me to go into mild panic attacks whenever I think too hard about it. Like Augustus, I am terrified of oblivion and want to leave a mark. Looking for Alaska really helped me cope with the idea of losing someone. This book helped me cope with the idea of facing of death. These characters, with the flaws that all humans have, were strong and made me so grateful for my health and my family and my friends and everything. Hazel and Augustus and Isaac made me value and appreciate my infinite infinity more, rather than me freaking out about the oblivion of it all. Not to say your book cured me, because it didn’t, but it really helped my perspective (Side note: I LOVE Augustus’ ideas about romanticizing the dead. I agree completely).

Another reason for my emotional response is due to my boyfriend. He is a firefighter who has suffered great loss and has either a great or a reckless perspective on death, depending on how you look at it. He’s like a more intense version of Hazel and I’m a less charming version of Augustus. We’ve been dating for about a year and half. There have been many moments where my thoughts are stars that unfortunately form into constellations and I think about the danger his job entails. When would I get the call? Who would call me? Where would I have to go? What should I say or do? How much would it break me? I’ve always stopped myself from thinking about it when I feel my eyes burning, but Hazel brought all of my repressed imaginings out. From her beautiful eulogy that mirrors how I feel to the process she had to go through after his death, all of my fears and feelings got brought out. After a long break from TFiOS to sob my fears, I felt like going through that with Hazel was therapeutic. Like Augustus, there’s an 80% chance my boyfriend will retire completely alive. But there is still the 20% I tried to pretend didn’t exist. Your characters helped me confront that.

The last reason I will list, though absolutely not the least, is your absolutely brilliant writing and insights. All of your books are full of perfectly blended humor and poignancy. I will be going along reading the plot and, woven effortlessly, will be a sentence or two insight that absolutely blows my mind. Even if you don’t claim yourself as a poet, your love of poetry definitely translates into your writing. Everything you write has such poetic brevity to it, and I feel like TFiOS is the most poetic of all your works. As an aspiring author fresh out of college, I felt inspired and inadequate while reading your writing. Essentially, if you ever say you are a bad or mediocre writer again, I will become a giant squid of anger. =)

Thank you so much for, not only this book, but for all your books, and for all the work you do for Nerdfighteria. I’ve been a Nerdfighter since 2008 and am very proud to be so.