Indiana: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Subtitle: Audiobook Awesomeness and a Tale of Two Books

It is just by coincidence that these two books came to my attention. While reading the School Library Journal, I came across the review for the novel Mothership by Martin Leicht and Isla Neal.  The review left me intrigued, despite a ridiculous premise. I put my stamp of approval on it and it finally arrived! At the same time the audiobook of The Fault in Our Stars arrived for me as part of the reading challenge and I have spent the past week listening to it to and from work. After listening/reading both these titles I have found that even though they have very different premises, these titles have very similar features. I want to first discuss The Fault in Our Stars.  Remember there be SPOILERS ahead!

Review of The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars is a story about Hazel Lancaster who is a terminally ill cancer patient with depression (which of course is kind of a duh). That is until she meets Augustus Waters at Cancer Support Group. Though Augustus has a different outlook on life as a cancer patient, Hazel finds herself drawn to him.  They fall in love, but it does not take too long for there to be a problem in paradise. As fate would have it, Augustus cancer returns and takes his life. The story follows Hazel as she deals with love and pain.

The writing is witty and funny and I found myself laughing along. Then automatically, I felt horrible for laughing at the sarcastic banter about cancer and teens dying, especially puns at the expense of the disabled. For example the character Isaac has a rare eye cancer, which led to an operation that leaves him blind. Unfortunately, there are multiple occasions where I could not help but giggle because I have a weird pun-tastic sense of humor. The phrases were similar to (not exact lines, but remember I did not read this) the phrases that follow: “It will all get better, you’ll SEE”, “People are so BLIND…”, “Why can’t anyone SEE that?” Again, I laughed and I could not help it.

Besides funny, the story is a real tearjerker. I probably would have cried if I read it, but it felt 1,000 times more emotional listening to the narrator. It made for more emotional days at work than I would like to actually admit.  Yeah that was me coming into the parking lot, face drenched in tears. Specifically this happened when Hazel discovered Augustus’ eulogy for her. Okay tearing up again writing this.

Additionally, I love that The Fault in Our Stars had well developed characters. Hazel and Augustus are wonderful and show strength as well as vulnerability.  Augustus also has one of my favorite quotes, “That's the thing about pain...it demands to be felt.” I can’t imagine the situation these teens are in, but in many ways I feel I understand how they feel. Is that crazy? If I were a terminally ill teen, I think I would have the same depression that Hazel endures as well as the same outlook as Augustus. I feel their love is telling us a different story of cancer, a story we would not normally know.  In a way, this made them relatable, despite being in a situation that most of us can’t imagine.

My one comment is the language. Whenever Augustus and Hazel discussed An Imperial Affliction (a fictitious title written by Hazel's fake idol Peter van Houten), I felt they spoke more mature than most teenagers. When I hear teenagers speak, they do not sound as thoughtful or deep as Hazel Grace and Gus.  My reference for this comes from working at the children’s section of the library. There are teens that say “liberry cahrd,” so hardly Einsteins.  I can; however, get over this, as the writing is still beautiful.

Review of Mothership

Mothership is a complete contrast to The Fault in Our Stars. In Mothership, we deal with teen pregnancy…and aliens.  Elvie Nara is a typical teenage girl with typical teenage girl problems in the year 2074. The hottest guy in school, Cole Archer, wants her and so she gives him what he wants. This then leads to a story that resembles that of The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Elvie is preggers. While she attends Hanover Academy for Pregnant Teens, the spaceship (?) is hijacked by “hot commandos” who of course includes Cole.  As it turns out (oh lord this is hard to explain), Elvie is carrying one kind of race of alien baby and her teachers at the Academy are the evil race trying to kill her alien baby. Yeah, that’s the plot of this first book. Don’t run away just yet, it was a delightful surprise.

Yes, the plot is completely…uh redonk, but it was not written to be beautiful. It was written to be funny and funny it was. I mean, you would read this book as a summer read, not for any academic purpose.  There are some definite dark comedic moments, such as pregnant teens suffocating, drowning, and getting decapitated, but this was just so cheesetastic that I can’t wait for book two.

The topic of teen pregnancy and sex could make parents uneasy, but this is for older teens.  Also, the scenes describing the death of many pregnant teens can be a bit disturbing. Additionally, there are heavy topics involved that could raise some brows. For example, there is a discussion in the book about a disease called CMS. It is a developmental disorder that they can detect in the womb and you can decide whether to terminate, in fact most people terminate.  Then there is the topic of abortion. In the future abortions are only allowed within two weeks of conception.  I want to so desperately try to think of a reason that these topics could be heavily discussed in a comedy, but I can’t.

Commonality

Both titles have a strong, well-developed female lead with excellent secondary characters.  Hazel pushes past her depression and admitting her feelings to her parents, while nine month preggers Elvie saves an entire ship of pregnant girls. Secondly, each work uses wit and sarcasm to tell its respective story; however, as you noticed there is significant difference. Lastly, I laughed at each one, though for very different reasons.

Though both books use wit and sarcasm to tell their story, each story had a different tone. Mothership was specifically for comedic purposes and offered a more accurate voice of the teen. Though I felt that the word “da fu” (meaning WTF) was overused to the point where it wasn’t that funny anymore.  The Fault in Our Stars used sarcasm in a darker manner. Hazel and Augustus are very much a clever and witty couple and use sarcasm to speak their feelings.

With Indiana complete, that is 14 down and 36 more to go.