This book loves travelling, just like I do! I would love for this book to be found by a fellow book-lover. I hope it is read, enjoyed, then released so that it can continue on its journey.

Please leave a journal entry if you find this book as I would love to track it as it travels far and wide. If you become a member of BookCrossing as a result of finding this book please list me as your referring member on your profile page.

Whoooooooosh!! Off it goes to its next destination - Switzerland. Hope you enjoy the book! Please pass it on when you are done with it :-)

Wow, this arrived so quickly, thanks to a call for suggestions on booktalk. I hope to teach an EFL course for teens (advanced EFL) with the theme of illness and health, and have the students research more about the various illnesses... This book was one suggested and BeckyLizz very kindly offered to send a copy! I love RABCKs, thank you so very much. I believe this will go in my suitcase on holiday with me when I leave next week, so that I can read it at leisure and see if it will suit my class or not. So far I've read one of the books suggested in the discussion on booktalk (Life on the Refrigerator Door)and was in tears - we'll have to see if this is an appropriate theme or not! I don't want us all to be depressed to bits...
Thank you so very much!

Wow. This RABCK, in response to a request for suggestions of books about illness and health for and EFL class with teens has blown me away and left me feeling like my skin has been peeled off.
Of course you know from the outset that this will not have a happy end, and the caustic humor is almost irritating in that you are lured into laughing... I'm not sure I've ever awarded the full set of stars to a book here or on goodreads - maybe like Hazel says, I've always been waiting for the ten - but this one deserves it. I read it as a possible book to use with a class of teenagers based on the above-mentioned theme. I don't know if I can - the language is not self-evident but I think my EFl class would be driven enough by the story and characters to push through ... but it's a bit like when I did a class with the theme of WWI - it's so dire.... And I have the feeling that when I read it a second time I'll start weeping from the outset as I know what's coming...
I'm going to try to get the rest of my family to read this, but as I was weeping so much this morning they may all back away from it.
okay - can I use that word without thinking of the role it plays in this book? - what did I like? the characters, and the writing... ah well, I'm on holiday and not too inclined to go into a full report here, but thanks so very much for sending this my way... Super book.

As I saw someone asking about this on the bookring/ray etc forum, I've decided to let this one travel on. I'll fine-tune the order later, but so far we've got:

okyrhoe (Greece) will ship international
Merolia (Greece) prefers Europe
lubiette (Greece) prefers Europe
tenscentpistol (France) will ship Europe
sarahmangan (UK) will ship UK
kisses-cuddles (UK) will ship UK or Europe
pam99 (Scotland) will ship International (asked to be skipped???)
earthcaroleanne (Scotland) prefers EU but will ship international if necessary
Miss_Sunshine (UK - or Egypt) will ship international (asked to be skipped)
cat02886 (RI, USA) US shipping only (asked to be skipped)
tchaikovsky (SC, USA) US shipping only (no response??)
spoiledrotten (NJ, USA) US shipping only (already read, asked to be skipped)
JennyC1230 (GA, USA) US shipping only (already read, asked to be skipped)

Possible reshuffle in order?

Bkind2books (TN, USA) US shipping preferred
glade1 (NC, USA) US shipping only
Scarlett07 (CO, USA) US shipping only for now
minesayn (OH, USA) US shipping preferred (could do international in a pinch)
FeistyPom2Love (CA, USA) can ship USA and Canada (asked to be skipped)
Heaven150 (Alberta, Canada) can ship international<--- it's here
Aus-charlotte (Australia) Australia only (asked to be skipped)
Billbooks (Australia) can ship international (asked to be skipped now and maybe moved to end)
lunacia (Norway) domestic or Europe
Sparkish (UK) prefers Europe (could do international in a pinch)
Jonniboi (UK) will ship UK (or Europe)
kate3005 (UK) prefers UK
lmarshall89 (UK) can ship international
nahriamedina (Indonesia) presumably international
Billbooks (Australia) can ship international
fiuf (Bulgaria) can ship international? (check first)


This list of participants is quite long, so I'm crossing my fingers the book will make it all the way. I try to check that participants send books on within a reasonable amount of time, but at the same time I didn't want to exclude newbies... in case anyone notices a notorious staller in the above list, please let me know.

And the journey begins! After almost summer-like temperatures and spring flowers for the past few weeks, this weekend the winter roared back in here in the Swiss Alps. So the books sets off from the snowy slopes to Greece.
As usual:
Please journal arrival as soon as the book makes it to you...
journal again with your comments once you've read it and try to send it on within a reasonable amount of time.
Please check that there have been no shifts in the posting order - sometimes people sign up later and may be slid into the list to streamline posting.

Life happens, but communication is a wonderful thing - if there's a delay, please keep us posted.
Happy trails little book, enjoy.

Arrived in rainy Athens.

Thanks penelopewanders for the ring. And I have never seen a flat Toblerone before!

[space for my review]

Handed over to Merolia today. Enjoy!

With me now, many thanks for sharing!

Nicely written and touching. I'm in no position to judge its accuracy, but for me it felt very convincing and honest. It captivates both the actual perspective of teenager and a person's daily coping with a terminal disease, without really overdoing it in sentiment. The relationships within the family and especially the character of Hazel's mother were among the strongest parts for me and chapter 24, revealing the mother's plans managed to give some real uplifting feeling to the end of the book.

It's true that this book could be regarded as aiming primarily to young readers, because of the emphasis on its protagonist's point of view. Still, I believe it is a good read for all ages. The friend who recommended it to me rightly pointed out that its large success, apart from its writing qualities, is also due to the fact that probably every one of us has at least one person in their immediate environment, relative or friend, who has suffered from cancer. It's definitely a difficult subject to handle and personally I don't have any other example of book to compare it with. I do feel I should be more acquainted with it and this is yet another reason why I'm glad I read this story.

Thank you for sharing! I will give the book to lubiette in person in the next few days.

I just got it from Merolia, thank you.

What a sad, sad story, even if narrated in the light tone of a sarcastic teenager, it remains a terrible tearjerker.

In the mail to Toulouse for tenscentpistol.

June 28th 2014 : The book arrived safe and sound in Toulouse yesterday. Thank you Lubiette for sending it over.

July 7th 2014 : After reading the comments, I seem to be only the "cold-hearted" (kidding) person who didn't cry. Though, I agree, it is a very sad, touching well-written story.
I've been sick for a few years now (still was a teenager when it started, though nothing as serious as cancer) and I related quite a lot to the relationship between the characters (especially Hazel and her parents) and what it feels like to still be young and be outside of school.
Thanks a lot for sharing this book !

I have the next person's address, and will do my best to mail it over this week!

I posted the book yesterday (July 19th) to sarahmangan.

SORRY to have kept it this long. Hope you enjoy it !

Thank you - the book was waiting for my on my return from holiday which was a nice welcome home! Should get round to reading it very soon. :)

I really enjoyed this - thanks for sharing it with me. I can now see why all the 12-16 year old girls I teach have been telling me I have to read it for the last year or so!

Will pm the next in the list and get it posted on ASAP.

Posted on to the next reader - I hope you enjoy it! :)

Arrived last week - alas no internet to 'catch' it! will start reading next week as i am almost finished another x

wow, where to begin...

i have not read a book this good is soo soo long. Nor have I finished a book so quickly! A brilliantly funny read that made me cry out in laughter and then actually cry just near the end. I very well written book.

The book is basically about two kids with cancer and the perks and pitfalls of their situation, a funny and enduring read. They head off on a whim to Amsterdam where they fall totally in love and have their first sip of champagne. Although I don't have cancer the characters are completely believable and human and I totally bought into the story, i feel like I know them!

Great Book! Highly Recommend! On its way to the next bookcrosser x

Arrived in the post today but I'm really worried about my bookring backlog. Why do they always arrive together?

This book needs a warning “Do Not Read on Public Transport”

When I was trying to sort out my thoughts before writing this I looked at other reviews and loved this one:-

“Let me start out by saying that this book ripped my heart from my chest, crumpled it and then proceeded to throw it on the ground and trample on it in the most beautiful way imaginable.”

This is a book peopled with a group of characters that you really care about. At its core are the star-crossed lovers, Hazel (with terminal cancer) and Augustus (a cancer survivor), who should have their whole lives to look forward to, who are instead making the most of an uncertain future. They meet at a cancer support group and become close, despite Hazel's desire to avoid becoming a "grenade" in anybody's life - by which she means someone who will unwittingly cause significant hurt through their passing. They are fantastically loveable characters, who flit between deep conversations about the meaning of life and finding refuge in video games and reality TV shows. I truly enjoyed their humour as well.

Beautifully and sensitively told from the teenagers' perspective.

ETA - Miss_Sunshine and cat02886 have asked to be skipped. I've PM'd tchaikovsky but just noticed they have no activity over the last 4 weeks. Hopefully I'll get it moving soon.
ETA - OK, I've now emailed spoiledrotten - fingers crossed! She's got it already.
ETA - Was going to PM JennyC1230 but as there was not much activiy on her profile so I looked closer and found she had read it in September. Time to try Bkind2books.

Arrived today, earthcaroleanne! Thanks so much for sending this on to me - I will start on it as soon as I've finished my latest Outlander novel (The TV series stopped abruptly in the middle of the first season and then said they'd resume in April. Well...I figured that I'd just read the book as I'd already planned to. Well, damn, if I'm not on #5 or so, and Lord are these novels consuming...I have to remind myself to go to bed sometimes.)

I've looked forward (I guess that's the word) to reading this. I lost my 16 year old daughter to cancer a little over 7 years ago. Her photo is my avatar. She fought it from the time she was 12 and her courage inspires me daily. She underwent 6 major surgeries and almost that many minor ones, untold rounds of chemo, 2 rounds of radiation, and several rounds of an injected radiopharmaceutical called Samarium. She was only in remission less than 6 months of the total of 4 years we fought this and even then we were still monitoring and doing tests and scans. She was a cancer warrior and now she's my angel.

I knew going in that this was a Cancer Book, but I had heard so much about it and I have enough distance to read these kind of books again. Why distance? Well, in 2004, my beautiful 12 year old daughter was diagnosed with a rare form of osteosarcoma. Remember Augustus talking about the 80% cure rate? Well, that's mostly true for the more common forms of the disease, especially when it's caught in time. However, my daughter had multifocal synchronous osteosarcoma - it basically appeared in both arms and her left leg simultaneously. Look up the survival rate for this type and you'll find the words invariably fatal. My daughter didn't let that stop her fight - she decided that someone had to be first to survive and it might as well be her. And that, as they say, is the rub. When you hear that the survival rate is 80%, that's bull. If you have cancer, there are only 2 outcomes - 0% or 100% - you are not 80% alive.

I state all this as prelude to my review of the novel because it is hard to divorce my feelings about the novel from my experience with Cancer. I thought the novel was a fairly accurate portrayal of the conflicts that many kids and families go through. Hazel and Gus were mature beyond their years, but living with this disease will do that. Some will confront it directly while others will ignore it as best they can - and who's to say what's the best way to handle it? or if there is a 'best' way? The author's depiction of the parents seemed pretty accurate as well - these folks are scared to death and trying to confront the worst thing a parent can face. There's not any huge surprises here - death is a constant when the subject is Cancer. But the theme is Life and how to live, not Death. Gus and Hazel figure out how to squeeze the most out of the time allotted to them. Yes, I cried, although not at the very end. It is a bittersweet story, but one worth reading.

Quotes to remember:

Osteosarcoma sometimes takes a limb to check you out. Then, if it likes you, it takes the rest.

It feels like we were all wounded in your battle.

I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.

...there is no glory in illness. There is no meaning to it. There is no honor in dying of.

I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is improbably biased toward consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it - or my observation of it - is temporary?

It's hard as hell to hold on to your dignity when the risen sun is too bright in your losing eyes...

There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities...There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.

We all want to be remembered...That's what bothers me most, is being the unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease.
I want to leave a mark.

You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.

Waiting on the next address in the bookring

Sorry I am late sending this - daughter's wedding was in mid-January and I've been scrambling to get things caught up since then.

Enjoy - this was a nice story and one that hit home for me.

Received in the mail yesterday. It's in line behind my current read and one other but I'll get to it as ASAP.

This was a quick read, very well-written, predictably heartbreaking. I loved Hazel, Augustus, and Isaac. They were so smart and sassy and honest, not playing games with relationships the way a lot of people do. I'm glad I read this to see what all the hype was about, and feel the book certainly deserves its popularity. I will seek out some of Green's other writing, I'm sure.

Thank you for including me in the ring, penelopewanders! I'm off to PM Scarlett07 for an address (didn't do it earlier because I didn't realize how quickly I'd get through the book).

Off to Scarlett07 today via Media Mail.

I received this book in the mail yesterday. I'll get to it as soon as I finish the one before it and get it on to the next person. Thanks Glade1 for getting it to me.

Enjoyed reading this sad book. It's a tough subject and especially when it involves kids but I thought it was well written.

Thanks BeckyLizz for starting the journey and I will pass it on as soon as I get the address.

Received in the mail today...thanks to Scarlett07 for sending it to me, and BeckyLizz for starting the ring. Will try to tackle it as soon as possible, but must admit to having another ring book that I just received.

Everyone is terminal.

In Hazel Grace's case, she's been terminal from the moment of her diagnosis of her cancer. Her support group friends deal with various forms of cancer, too. Isaac is her friend, and when she meets Isaac's friend Augustus, their friendship turns to love. This relationship makes for some happy times, some sad times, and some poignant times as they cope with the "faulty stars" they have been handed. Mostly, it is about living life to the fullest despite the life you've been given.

Waiting on the address of the next person, then will send it out.

"No two persons ever read the same book."--Edmund Wilson

Sharing this book with the wider world--enjoy!
I have either registered it, or received it from another person who is willing to share it, too. Consider logging onto www.bookcrossing.com and letting us know where it is been and where it is going next. It can be done anonymously or join the site as a member.


8 stars for the story of Hazel, Augustus, and Isaac...from my Goodreads.com review:

Everyone is terminal.

In Hazel Grace's case, she's been terminal from the moment of her diagnosis of her cancer. Her support group friends deal with various forms of cancer, too. Isaac is her friend, and when she meets Isaac's friend Augustus, their friendship turns to love. This relationship makes for some happy times, some sad times, and some poignant times as they cope with the "faulty stars" they have been handed.
After skipping feistypom upon her request (she has read it already), this book is on its way to Heaven150. Mailed today.

Received today. Looking forward to reading this.