This is my second time reviewing The Fault in Our Stars and it’s been reviewed countless times on Cannonball so I’m not going to do a whole plot summary. What I need is for more of you to read Turtles All The Way Down so I can argue the following (potentially controversial) point: Turtles All The Way Down is better than The Fault in Our Stars.
This isn’t to say TFIOS is a bad book or even undeserving of the 5 Star rating I gave it 4 years ago and again today. It is simply a preference I am more than happy to debate with a fellow Cannonballer should the occasion arise. I think my biggest reason for preferring Turtles may just be because it struck a more familiar chord with me. I suffer from anxiety and am close with a dozen people in varying states of OCD and social anxiety but have been blessed with a childhood and adolescence free from cancer.
I will not tell you our love story, because—like all real love stories—it will die with us, as it should. I’d hoped that he’d be eulogizing me.”
TFIOS seems more traditionally YA than Turtles– I forgot how brief the courtship between Hazel and Augustus was- with a more prominent love story and angst. Despite its brevity the relationship between Hazel and Gus is beautiful; it is both unrealistically romantic and painfully rooted in the messy reality of real teen relationships. I will continue to hate, but respect the hell out of, Green’s choice to kill one of his darlings. The darling that, I suspect, gutted people more deeply to lose than the more obvious choice would.
“It’s total bullshit,” he said. “The whole thing. Eighty percent survival rate and he’s in the twenty percent? Bullshit. He was such a bright kid. It’s bullshit. I hate it. But it was sure a privilege to love him, huh?”