The Fault in Our Stars is Always Best

Have any of you heard of The Children's Choice Book Awards, "the only national book awards program where the winning titles are selected by children and teens of all ages"? 

I got a voting link to this on my email about 2 weeks ago.  Check it out!  I was even able to add the voting widget here to save you all some time and encourage you to vote on the spot. 

Voting opened on the 19th of March and it seems to still be available.  As soon as I post this, I am voting right here and right now, and from the choices provided, I have to say my vote goes to...

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.

Why?  Well, I am in love with the authentic YA voice, and that coupled with some of the best writing YA has to offer, ala the greatness of all that is John Green, is what brilliant contemporary YA is all about.  It's YA with heartbreak, with happy and tragic, with awful and beautiful.  Not to mention, the obvious allusion to so many things Shakespeare, in particular to "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/But in ourselves" from The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. 

How funny that in my last post I made reference to this same Shakespearean tragedy, and here I am referencing it again.  We English teachers just can not get away from Shakespeare. I mean, I got this allusion on the first glimpse of the title way back when it came out about a year ago or more.  But you know, the title and all its implications, though, bring to mind another Shakespearean tragedy instead.  You know, the one about star crossed lovers...  I guess it's in the word stars.

I feel sad already :(

I know many, many of you have already read this novel, so I feel like I am too many months late for a review, but here is a brief summary from Goodreads.  And, if you haven't read it, then you are missing out.  It's like me asking "And you, Reader?" (Just like "Et tu, Brute?" from Julius Caesar, meaning, that you are betraying the YA genre by not having read The Fault in Our Stars.)

"Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 13, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs... for now.

Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault.

Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind."
NOW VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE!