Plot Summary - Augustus and Hazel are battling cancer and are in love. They met at a support group and instantly were drawn to one another. Imperial Affliction is a book that ties this whole story together. They both want to know why the book ends so abruptly. They embark on an adventure to understand more about their favorite book. While on this journal they fall even more in love than either of them expected. Augustus is dying and hasn't let Hazel in on the whole story. He just wants her to enjoy her time without having to worry about him. When they return from their trip to Amsterdam Augustus passes away. "Some infinities are bigger than other infinities."
Personal Reaction - This was a good quick read. I couldn't put the book down. I loved the fact that these kids didn't want anyone to feel sorry for them, they have tough exteriors. I was drawn to these characters because they reminded me of my junior high students. There was some language in the book that I wasn't comfortable with but other than that the book was excellent.
Memorable Literary Element - There is a lot of personification throughout this book. Augustus and Hazel give life and meaning to everything, probably because they're dying. For example, they give the universe a personality and describe its needs. Its strange but impactful.
Review - Booklist starred (January 1, 2012 (Vol. 108, No. 9))
Grades 9-12. At 16, Hazel Grace Lancaster, a three-year stage IV–cancer survivor, is clinically depressed. To help her deal with this, her doctor sends her to a weekly support group where she meets Augustus Waters, a fellow cancer survivor, and the two fall in love. Both kids are preternaturally intelligent, and Hazel is fascinated with a novel about cancer called An Imperial Affliction. Most particularly, she longs to know what happened to its characters after an ambiguous ending. To find out, the enterprising Augustus makes it possible for them to travel to Amsterdam, where Imperial’s author, an expatriate American, lives. What happens when they meet him must be left to readers to discover. Suffice it to say, it is significant. Writing about kids with cancer is an invitation to sentimentality and pathos—or worse, in unskilled hands, bathos. Happily, Green is able to transcend such pitfalls in his best and most ambitious novel to date. Beautifully conceived and executed, this story artfully examines the largest possible considerations—life, love, and death—with sensitivity, intelligence, honesty, and integrity. In the process, Green shows his readers what it is like to live with cancer, sometimes no more than a breath or a heartbeat away from death. But it is life that Green spiritedly celebrates here, even while acknowledging its pain. In its every aspect, this novel is a triumph. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Green’s promotional genius is a force of nature. After announcing he would sign all 150,000 copies of this title’s first print run, it shot to the top of Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s best-seller lists six months before publication.
Promotion - The movie for this book was just released. Students would be involved in a study of the book with the teacher and then be allowed to watch the movie.
Personal Reaction - This was a good quick read. I couldn't put the book down. I loved the fact that these kids didn't want anyone to feel sorry for them, they have tough exteriors. I was drawn to these characters because they reminded me of my junior high students. There was some language in the book that I wasn't comfortable with but other than that the book was excellent.
Memorable Literary Element - There is a lot of personification throughout this book. Augustus and Hazel give life and meaning to everything, probably because they're dying. For example, they give the universe a personality and describe its needs. Its strange but impactful.
Review - Booklist starred (January 1, 2012 (Vol. 108, No. 9))
Grades 9-12. At 16, Hazel Grace Lancaster, a three-year stage IV–cancer survivor, is clinically depressed. To help her deal with this, her doctor sends her to a weekly support group where she meets Augustus Waters, a fellow cancer survivor, and the two fall in love. Both kids are preternaturally intelligent, and Hazel is fascinated with a novel about cancer called An Imperial Affliction. Most particularly, she longs to know what happened to its characters after an ambiguous ending. To find out, the enterprising Augustus makes it possible for them to travel to Amsterdam, where Imperial’s author, an expatriate American, lives. What happens when they meet him must be left to readers to discover. Suffice it to say, it is significant. Writing about kids with cancer is an invitation to sentimentality and pathos—or worse, in unskilled hands, bathos. Happily, Green is able to transcend such pitfalls in his best and most ambitious novel to date. Beautifully conceived and executed, this story artfully examines the largest possible considerations—life, love, and death—with sensitivity, intelligence, honesty, and integrity. In the process, Green shows his readers what it is like to live with cancer, sometimes no more than a breath or a heartbeat away from death. But it is life that Green spiritedly celebrates here, even while acknowledging its pain. In its every aspect, this novel is a triumph. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Green’s promotional genius is a force of nature. After announcing he would sign all 150,000 copies of this title’s first print run, it shot to the top of Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s best-seller lists six months before publication.
Promotion - The movie for this book was just released. Students would be involved in a study of the book with the teacher and then be allowed to watch the movie.