Oh this book is so sweet. It's sad. So so sad, but not depressing. It's brutally brutally honest in every possible way. And it's funny. There were a few parts in the beginning, and Hazel says the most honest things and they're funny even though she's talking about cancer and death and you almost feel like you shouldn't be laughing but you do anyway because that's just how real the book is. 
 I haven't read many of John Green's books, even though I've wanted to. I read Looking For Alaska, and now The Fault in Our Stars. And the writing style is really similar in certain ways. And the story line is even sort of the same in certain ways. But they were really different too. 
 So this book, is all about cancer. And Hazel even states, right in the beginning of the story, that cancer. books. just. suck. This one, however, didn't. Because really this book wasn't just about cancer, it was about life. Jesus, it's making me all poetic. 
 Anyway, the book is about Hazel, a girl with stage IV thyroid cancer that spread to her lungs, which now has her tethered to a portable oxygen tank. Each week she goes to a support group for kids with cancer, where she meets Augustus Waters, which I thought was just the weirdest name ever but it totally works. Anyway, he is a boy that states he had a "touch" of osteosarcoma, which left him with approximately one and a half legs, and a prosthetic for the rest. Augustus and Hazel fall in love. 
 And that is the very very very basic story line, but it's so so so much more than that. Basically the whole story is commentary on this book. This book, An Imperial Affliction by Peter Van Houten. This book is what brings Gus and Hazel together. It's what brings about a lot of the commentary and more profound comments from Hazel and Augustus. It's what inspires a trip halfway across the world. It's just genius! 
 Now, the characters. I loved all of them. They were so real. Hazel was brutally honest in a way that made everything more real. Augustus was a very very charismatic character that I loved so very much. Always the optimist. 
 And the book was so profound, but with humor and everything and all the honestly to go along with it. It's perfect. It makes you think about things you didn't quite think about before, and you see everything from the eyes of these people that know exactly what they're talking about, and you know exactly what they're thinking and it's. Just. Genius. 
 And the ending. It had me totally in tears. But it was an honest ending, god I use that word a lot to describe this book. Anyway, it was an honest ending because you knew that it had to end like that. Everything was nice and rounded at the end, and just perfect. 
 Five stars all around. For everything. I'm keeping this book for a very long time and reading it over and over again, because even though it had the potential to be a sad and depressing, sappy cancer love story. It just isn't. And, this may sounds kind of bad, but even though it's a cancer book about life and death, it's kind of got a happy feel to it. Very profound, I know.