ABA Journal The digital English academy
Welcome to the ABA Book Club!
Every month we review and recommend a great book for you to practice reading in English. The language in these books is not complex from a literary point of view, but they do require a certain level of understanding.
So, which book will we review today? The Fault in our Stars, a novel by John Green. It is about Hazel, a 16 year old girl diagnosed with terminal cancer and her story of falling in love with fellow cancer survivor Augustus. It’s a beautiful book which is now in cinemas. It has sold millions of copies and has been the #1 bestseller for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Indie Bestseller, as well as many other international bestseller lists.
If you don’t read the book, then watch the move (in English, of course!)
| Reading Level | Advanced |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Length (pages) | 318 |
| Original Date of Publishing | 2012 |
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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.
We would love to tell you what happens when they meet him, but you will have to read the book! Suffice it to say, it is significant. Writing about kids with cancer is an invitation to sentimentality and pathos. Happily, Green is able to transcend such pitfalls in his best and most ambitious novel to date.
It is a beautifully written book and the story artfully examines life’s biggest questions of love and death with sensitivity, intelligence, honesty, and integrity. Throughout the book, the author John Green shows his readers what it is like to live with cancer, sometimes no more than a breath or a heartbeat away from death.
This novel is a great success and has been acclaimed all over the world. Are you going to read it?
Vocabulary
Survivor – a person who continues to live after an accident, illness, war, etc.
Deal – to accept or try to accept (something that is true and cannot be changed) : to control your feelings about (something).
Support group – a group of people who have similar experiences and concerns and who meet in order to provide emotional help, advice, and encouragement for one another.
Fellow – used to describe people who belong to the same group or class or who share a situation, experience, etc.
Preternaturally – very unusual in a way that does not seem natural.
Ambiguous – able to be understood in more than one way : having more than one possible meaning.
Enterprising – having or showing the ability or desire to do new and difficult things.
Suffice it to say – used to say that you could give more information about something but that the statement that follows is enough.
Pathos – a quality that causes people to feel sympathy and sadness.
Transcend – to rise above or go beyond the normal limits of (something).
Pitfalls – a danger or problem that is hidden or not obvious at first — usually plural.
Artfully – good at getting or achieving things in ways that are clever and not noticeable.
Heartbeat – the action or sound of the heart as it pumps blood.
Acclaimed – strong approval or praise.
Book
To read more reviews and find out where to buy this book, if you think you’d enjoy reading it, visit Goodreads.
Do you have a special book you would recommend to your friends? Let us know!
