The Fault in Our Stars

Price of Dawn review: Too many bodies. Not enough adjectives. How’s AIA?

He replied a minute later:
As I recall, you promised to CALL when you finished the book, not text.

So I called.
“Hazel Grace,” he said upon picking up.
“So have you read it?”
“Well, I haven’t finished it. It’s six hundred fifty-one pages long and I’ve had twenty-
four hours.”
“How far are you?”
“Four fifty-three.”
“And?”
“I will withhold judgment until I finish. However, I will say that I’m feeling a bit
embarrassed to have given you The Price of Dawn.”
“Don’t be. I’m already on Requiem for Mayhem.”
“A sparkling addition to the series. So, okay, is the tulip guy a crook? I’m getting a
bad vibe from him.”
“No spoilers,” I said.
“If he is anything other than a total gentleman, I’m going to gouge his eyes out.”
“So you’re into it.”
“Withholding judgment! When can I see you?”
“Certainly not until you finish An Imperial Affliction.” I enjoyed being coy.
“Then I’d better hang up and start reading.”
“You’d better,” I said, and the line clicked dead without another word.

---

Flirting was new to me, but I liked it.
The next morning I had Twentieth-Century American Poetry at MCC. This old woman
gave a lecture wherein she managed to talk for ninety minutes about Sylvia Plath without
ever once quoting a single word of Sylvia Plath.
When I got out of class, Mom was idling at the curb in front of the building.
“Did you just wait here the entire time?” I asked as she hurried around to help me
haul my cart and tank into the car.
“No, I picked up the dry cleaning and went to the post office.”
“And then?”
“I have a book to read,” she said.
“And I’m the one who needs to get a life.” I smiled, and she tried to smile back, but
there was something flimsy in it. After a second, I said, “Wanna go to a movie?”
“Sure. Anything you’ve been wanting to see?”
“Let’s just do the thing where we go and see whatever starts next.” She closed the
door for me and walked around to the driver’s side. We drove over to the Castleton theater
and watched a 3-D movie about talking gerbils. It was kind of funny, actually.
When I got out of the movie, I had four text messages from Augustus.
Tell me my copy is missing the last twenty pages or something.
Hazel Grace, tell me I have not reached the end of this book.
OH MY GOD DO THEY GET MARRIED OR NOT OH MY GOD WHAT IS THIS
I guess Anna died and so it just ends? CRUEL. Call me when you can. Hope all’s
okay.
So when I got home I went out into the backyard and sat down on this rusting latticed
patio chair and called him. It was a cloudy day, typical Indiana: the kind of weather that
boxes you in. Our little backyard was dominated by my childhood swing set, which was
looking pretty waterlogged and pathetic.
Augustus picked up on the third ring. “Hazel Grace,” he said.
“So welcome to the sweet torture of reading An Imperial—” I stopped when I heard
violent sobbing on the other end of the line. “Are you okay?” I asked.

---

“I’m grand,” Augustus answered. “I am, however, with Isaac, who seems to be
decompensating.” More wailing. Like the death cries of some injured animal. Gus turned
his attention to Isaac. “Dude. Dude. Does Support Group Hazel make this better or worse?
Isaac. Focus. On. Me.” After a minute, Gus said to me, “Can you meet us at my house in,
say, twenty minutes?”
“Sure,” I said, and hung up.
If you could drive in a straight line, it would only take like five minutes to get from my
house to Augustus’s house, but you can’t drive in a straight line because Holliday Park is
between us.
Even though it was a geographic inconvenience, I really liked Holliday Park. When I
was a little kid, I would wade in the White River with my dad and there was always this
great moment when he would throw me up in the air, just toss me away from him, and I
would reach out my arms as I flew and he would reach out his arms, and then we would
both see that our arms were not going to touch and no one was going to catch me, and it
would kind of scare the shit out of both of us in the best possible way, and then I would
legs-flailingly hit the water and then come up for air uninjured and the current would bring
me back to him as I said again, Daddy, again.
I pulled into the driveway right next to an old black Toyota sedan I figured was
Isaac’s car. Carting the tank behind me, I walked up to the door. I knocked. Gus’s dad
answered.
“Just Hazel,” he said. “Nice to see you.”
“Augustus said I could come over?”
“Yeah, he and Isaac are in the basement.” At which point there was a wail from
below. “That would be Isaac,” Gus’s dad said, and shook his head slowly. “Cindy had to
go for a drive. The sound . . .” he said, drifting off. “Anyway, I guess you’re wanted
downstairs. Can I carry your, uh, tank?” he asked.
“Nah, I’m good. Thanks, though, Mr. Waters.”
“Mark,” he said.
I was kind of scared to go down there. Listening to people howl in misery is not
among my favorite pastimes. But I went.
“Hazel Grace,” Augustus said as he heard my footsteps. “Isaac, Hazel from Support
Group is coming downstairs. Hazel, a gentle reminder: Isaac is in the midst of a psychotic
episode.”
Augustus and Isaac were sitting on the floor in gaming chairs shaped like lazy Ls,
staring up at a gargantuan television. The screen was split between Isaac’s point of view
on the left, and Augustus’s on the right. They were soldiers fighting in a bombed-out
modern city. I recognized the place from The Price of Dawn. As I approached, I saw
nothing unusual: just two guys sitting in the lightwash of a huge television pretending to
kill people.

---

Only when I got parallel to them did I see Isaac’s face. Tears streamed down his
reddened cheeks in a continual flow, his face a taut mask of pain. He stared at the screen,
not even glancing at me, and howled, all the while pounding away at his controller. “How
are you, Hazel?” asked Augustus.
“I’m okay,” I said. “Isaac?” No response. Not even the slightest hint that he was
aware of my existence. Just the tears flowing down his face onto his black T-shirt.
Augustus glanced away from the screen ever so briefly. “You look nice,” he said. I
was wearing this just-past-the-knees dress I’d had forever. “Girls think they’re only
allowed to wear dresses on formal occasions, but I like a woman who says, you know, I’m