The Fault in Our Stars

Hazel calls herself a grenade. Do you agree with her logic — that loving people when you know you're going to die is a form of damage you inflict on them? Does the novel agree with her?

The novel is titled after a Shakespeare line that Cassius uses to argue fate is in our hands, not the stars. Green's title implies the opposite — the fault IS in the stars. What is Green saying about free will and illness?

Hazel says 'some infinities are bigger than other infinities.' She applies this to her relationship with Augustus — their finite time together can still be infinite in what it contains. Is this mathematically accurate, and does the math matter to the meaning?

An Imperial Affliction ends mid-sentence because its narrator dies. The Fault in Our Stars ends with 'I do.' What is Green saying by choosing to end his novel instead of leaving it unfinished like Van Houten's?

Peter Van Houten is contemptible in person but wrote the book Hazel loves most. Can art be better than its creator? Does knowing Van Houten's history with loss change how you evaluate his novel?

Augustus is obsessed with significance — with being remembered, mattering, leaving a mark. Hazel argues that most people are forgotten and that's okay. Whose position does the novel ultimately validate?

Green has Hazel narrate in past tense throughout the novel, implying she survived to tell the story. Why does he never specify when Hazel is narrating from — how far in the future? What does this ambiguity do?

The gas station scene — Augustus infected, in pain, in a parking lot puddle at 2 a.m. — is the novel's least romantic scene. Why does Green put it there? What would be lost if he left it out?

Hazel explicitly criticizes the 'cancer book' genre and the 'brave dying girl who teaches everyone to live' trope. Is The Fault in Our Stars guilty of the thing it criticizes?

Augustus writes Hazel a eulogy before he dies — finishing it with Van Houten's help. Why does Green have the eulogy delivered by Van Houten, of all people? What does Van Houten's involvement mean?

Compare Hazel's fear (being a grenade, hurting people by dying) to Augustus's fear (oblivion, not mattering). Who has the healthier relationship with their own mortality?

The real funeral — crowded with coaches and acquaintances — is described as worse than the pre-funeral in the woods. Why is public grief different from private grief? What does the crowd take from Hazel?

Van Houten quotes T.S. Eliot and Philip Larkin at Hazel and Augustus as if great poetry is a weapon. Is it? Can literature be used to wound?

Isaac smashes trophies after Monica breaks up with him. Hazel and Augustus sit with him and enable it. What does this scene — comic, destructive, cathartic — say about how different people process loss?

The novel insists repeatedly that 'the world is not a wish-granting factory.' But the Genie Foundation grants wishes. What is Green doing with this irony?

Hazel's final words are 'I do.' What question is she answering? Why does Green give us the answer without the question?

Green uses real mathematical concepts (Cantor's infinities), a real Shakespeare play (Julius Caesar), and real literary techniques (the unreliable narrator) in a YA novel. What is he claiming by giving teenagers this level of intellectual content?

How would this novel be different if it were narrated by Augustus instead of Hazel? What would we see that we currently can't? What would we lose?

The novel is dedicated to Esther Earl, a real teenage cancer patient who was a fan of Green's work and who died in 2010. Does knowing this change how you read the novel? Should it?

Hazel describes An Imperial Affliction as ending 'in the middle of a sentence.' Green's novel ends with two words: 'I do.' Compare these endings. What does each author's choice say about their relationship to grief?

Augustus's ex-girlfriend Caroline Mathers — who also had brain cancer and died — appears at his funeral. Why does Green include this character? What does she represent for Hazel?

The novel's cancer support group, held at the Literal Heart of Jesus, is rendered ironically — Patrick's forced optimism, the corny readings, the circle of chairs. Does the novel respect or mock this community?

Augustus says 'My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.' He borrows Hazel's star metaphor but inverts it — the stars don't make patterns. What does this reveal about his state of mind when he says it?

The novel was adapted into a film in 2014 that was very successful. Film adaptations almost always simplify — what do you think a film cannot capture from this novel, and why?

Green has Hazel insist that 'Funerals, I decided, are for the living.' Is the novel's own existence — as a book about dying teenagers — primarily for the dying or for the living?

Van Houten in person is drunk, cruel, and contemptible. Van Houten in his letters is erudite and seemingly genuine. Which is the real Van Houten? Does a person's best self (their art, their letters) count more or less than their behavior?

Hazel says her cancer is 'a side effect of dying.' Augustus says in his eulogy that Hazel is not a side effect of cancer — she is the thing itself. What is Green arguing about how illness relates to identity?

'Okay? Okay.' — the private language Hazel and Augustus develop. By the end of the novel, the word does enormous emotional work. Trace how its meaning changes from first use to last.

Green includes real mathematical concepts, real literary references, and invented fictional texts in the same novel. Why does he blur the line between the real and the invented so deliberately?

If you were Hazel, would you have let yourself love Augustus knowing what you knew about your own prognosis? Use the novel's own logic — the grenade, the infinities — to argue both sides.