This book has been sitting on my shelf for 2 whole years without being read as well as Green's Looking for Alaska. I was planning to go read John Green's work at some point and I was hoping to start with Looking for Alaska before starting this one but with the movie coming out for this one, it jumped ahead of LFA. 
 For the first half of the book, I felt unaffected much with the plot and characters; maybe because contemporary fiction isn't really my first choice and I don't read a lot from that genre. Though I must admit and give credit to Green as he knows how to write realistic teenagers. I thought he did really well in capturing the realistic thoughts of a teenager who is suffering with Cancer with Hazel; usually with characters with a terminal illness; they either are too strong, too whiny or too depressing. But with Hazel; she seems to be very realistic with how she was handling her illness. 
 Like I mentioned earlier, I thought I was not concerned with any of the characters.. until I came to the point where (view spoiler)[ Gus's illness came back and his heath was going downhill. (hide spoiler)] I was so surprised when I almost burst into tears at that point and how the novel progressed after that point. It turns out that I deeply cared about these characters then I thought and (view spoiler)[ I was devastated when Gus passed away (hide spoiler)] but it shows that Green gives his readers a realistic view when it comes to plot twists and elements, sometimes (view spoiler)[ it isn't always a happy ending (hide spoiler)] because that's simply life... 
 I think what I loved most about this book was how the relationships of the characters developed and how they dealt with each other. 
 I did not see that ending coming .. it was so abrupt I had to go back and forth; unable to comprehend that the book has ended. I expected a few more pages after that last page but there wasn't... 
 I'm glad that this is the first book I picked up from Green; it was a page turned and a very light read despite it being a little depressing and revolves around the subject of illness and death. I am looking forward to reading more of Green's work