The Fault in our Stars (Film)

It is no secret that I love John Green and his books. His last novel, The Fault In Our Stars is one of the best YA books I have read. I usually recommend the book to every reader I know. I love the book so much to the point that every time someone I know asked me what to read I will shoved to them my signed copy of the book to read. In fact, that copy is still with a friend, who I asked to read the book before seeing the film.

To be honest, I’m not sure what to expect for the movie adaptation. Yes, I am excited for the film, but at the same time unsure how will it goes. Movie adaptation is mostly miss than hit for me, especially for books I love dearly which makes me skeptical sometimes. But no matter what, I still make sure to see the films. So last night, I went with my sister to watch the movie during its first day of screening here in the Philippines.

The film is extremely faithful to the book which I really appreciate. It follows Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters, two teenagers who meet in a cancer support group. Hazel has thyroid cancer. Her “lungs suck at being lungs” so she wear a nasal tubes in her nose and drag around an oxygen tank everywhere she went. Augustus aka “Gus” is a survivor of osteosarcoma. He lost his leg during his battle but apparently he is in remission. He is determined to live — not just a life but an extraordinary one. He is full of life for a cancer patient and he wants to share that with Hazel.

Shailene Woodley as Hazel Grace Lancaster is so fitting for the role. I admire how she can easily captures a very conflicting character like Hazel Grace. She carry her strength and weakness every time she is on screen, making Hazel’s character so alive. As a cancer patient Hazel has this wit, and hope in her even after all the pain she went through, and Shailene shows all that and more. The way she deliver her lines has pain and strength which makes John Green’s complex lines from the novel convincingly powerful. If you have read the book like me, for sure you understand how big and powerful those lines are. They aren’t easy to deliver especially from a mouth of a teenager, but Shailene managed to deliver them with ease that I’m surprise that I’m not rolling my eyes or rising my eyebrows.

As for Ansel Elgort, well he got me with his grin right the moment he first show himself on big screen. Honestly, when I first heard that he was cast for the role of Augustus, I don’t believe he can own the role. He is too sweet for my liking, and Augustus in my mind isn’t like that. Augustus is cocky, confident and even idealistic but also pretentious. He is a human metaphor himself, masking his vulnerability with his self-confident. It’s his way of living his sick life or more specifically his fighting mechanism. But after seeing the film last night, I’m convinced that Ansel is the perfect Gus. He successfully deliver a good portrayal for Augustus. It isn’t what I initially want but seeing Gus character in action is still utterly enjoying. Ansel not only own the role for Gus but also makes Gus’ character incredibly sweet by pulling his charms.

To those who are worried about Shailene and Ansel’s team-up after being siblings from the film Divergent, rest assured that they made a great love team in this film. They are very convincing as a couple. Their chemistry is undeniable and surprisingly believable. They easily own the sweet young romance that evolved in the most unexpected time of two teenagers.

The film didn’t make me weep unlike when I read the book a couple of times, but it still makes me feel all the emotions I undergo through while reading. I still ache for Gus and Hazel. I smile and laugh with them along with all the movie goers at the cinema last night. I swoon and feel their love for each other and for their family and friends. I hope even I know long ago how their story will end.

The Fault In Our Stars easily the best contemporary book adaptation I’ve seen. With all the quotable lines from John Green’s novel, it is a thought-provoking story that will make you question everything you think you know about life, love and sickness. I will definitely watch again this film soon.

Book to Movie: The Fault In Our Stars (Movie Trailer)

Here it is, the official movie trailer of The Fault In Our Stars, starring Shailene Woodley as Hazel Grace Lancaster and Ansel Elgor as Augustus “Gus” Waters. Directed by Josh Boone.

What do you think of the trailer? Me, honestly I get teary watching the trailer above. I love John Green‘s novel where this movie is based and seeing the characters, Hazel and Augustus on screen just makes me relieve the emotional roller coaster ride I experienced while reading the book. I can’t wait to watch the whole film on its released date.

Book to Movie: The Fault In Our Stars (Sneak Peek)

John Green recently uploaded a teaser trailer for the movie adaptation of his book, The Fault In Our Stars. The full trailer will hit the web tomorrow, and will be shown in theaters starting on Valentines Day! I know, we are all excited to see Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus “Gus” Waters on big screen but for now tease yourself with the sneak peak video below.

I’ve heard that there is a video of the movie trailer that already leaked online that’s why they are releasing the full trailer earlier than expected. I have no plans of checking the leaked version but I will surely watch the full trailer once the movie maker officially released it online. Can’t wait to see this film on the big screen!And maybe I do a reread of the novel  while waiting.

Book to Movie: TFioS Movie Poster

The Fault in our Stars is one big movie I am excitedly anticipating! The novel where this film is based is one of my favorite reads and I just love John Green!

As for the movie poster above, I think the film makers or whoever is in charge with that poster nailed it. I like that they make Hazel wear the breathing tube which simply emphasize her sickness without making her look too much  disable. I also like that they didn’t changed the font color (blue and white) of the title which is the same with what the publisher used in the first edition of the book.

On related news, there are fuzz circling online about the movie tagline, “One sick love story” criticizing the film makers or whoever think of the tagline for making joke out of two sick people’s love story, which is a dark topic discussed in the novel where the film is based.  John Green, author of the novel also said his opinion about the tagline through his Tumblr account.

I get it why some find “One sick love story”, tagline as offensive, but mostly because I assume that they haven’t read the book yet. Because if you have read John Green’s novel of the same title where this film is based you know how fitting that tagline is. “One sick love story” is something that characters would say. Possibly something Gus and Hazel would think of as their tagline for their own story. If not, they would certainly approved of it or they would laugh at it if they read the tagline themselves.

The Fault in our Stars  tells an honest and raw story of two cancer patients, Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters, who find each other in a cancer support group. It is an heartbreaking novel that deals with sickness and death but also a humorous book. Trsut me, it’s so much more than a sad story! Okay? Okay.

As stated from the poster above, the film is due to released on June 6, 2014, which stars Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort as Hazel Grace and Agustus Waters respectively. I’m really excited to see this heartbreaking & heartwarming story on big screen! 

Quotes: The Fault in Our Star by John Green

Rainy nights make me want to cuddle up in bed and just read. And tonight I’m particularly incline revisiting the sweet and painful story of Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters from John Green‘s The Fault in our Stars. When I first read the book on the day it was released, I am so full of emotions that I never tried reviewing the book. I accepted the fact that there is no way I’ll be able to write my thoughts and feelings about the story and my reading experience. There’s no way I can justify John Green’s greatness and The Fault in our Stars perfections. Not when I first read the book, not tonight and not in the near future. Though tonight I want to share some beautiful, poignant and emotional quotes from the book. Lines that makes me ponder, realize and feel.

LOVE

“I will not tell you our love story, because—like all real love stories—it will die with us, as it should.”

“I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.”

“Some people don’t understand the promises they’re making when they make them,” I said.

“Right, of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That’s what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway.”

“There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There’s .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I’m likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.”

PAIN & DYING

“The marks humans leave are too often scars.”

“Pain is like fabric: The stronger it is, the more it’s worth.”

“That’s the thing about pain,” Augustus said, and then glanced back at me. “It demands to be felt.”

“You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world…but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices.”

“Without pain, how could we know joy?’ This is an old argument in the field of thinking about suffering and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries but suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not, in any way, affect the taste of chocolate.”

“Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you.”

“Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of cancer. But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying.”

“You do not immortalize the lost by writing about them. Language buries, but does not resurrect.”

“We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either.”

PLACES

“The world is not a wish-granting factory.”

“Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin.”

“The weird thing about houses is that they almost always look like nothing is happening inside of them, even though they contain most of our lives. I wondered if that was sort of the point of architecture.”

“I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is improbably biased toward consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it – or my observation of it – is temporary.”

BOOKS

“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.”

“And then there are books like An Imperial Affliction, which you can’t tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like betrayal.”

LIFE & EVERYTHING ELSE

“There will come a time,” I said, “when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this”—I gestured encompassingly—“will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that’s what everyone else does.”

“The real heroes anyways aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.”

“There is no try,” I said. “There is only do.”

“You are so busy being you that you have no idea how utterly unprecedented you are.”

“My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.”

“There is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars.”

In My Mailbox: January Releases

For this week In My Mailbox post I decided to feature only the books that are recently released. For the fast few days or weeks I’ve been hunting copies of books that will fit for reading challenges that I joined to such as Debut Author Reading Challenge and Contemporary Reading Challenge which all requires books that were released this year. Here are the books I got that can be considered for the reading challenges:

The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

Thanks to Louisse for pointing me where to buy a signed copy of John Green‘s latest novel, The Fault In Our Stars. I’ve been waiting for this book since I found out about it. I almost pre-ordered a copy from Book Depository but when I found out that local book stores will be selling a signed edition, I decided to just wait till it become available locally. Which is a right choice since there are some issues that not all pre-ordered books  that were delivered are signed, and waiting orders from book depository will take longer not to mention that there’s no guarantee that the book will arrived in perfect condition due to postage handling . My copy has a purple signature in it, no yeti or hanklerfish doodles. I’m not sure if there were copies with John Green‘s doodles that reached here in Manila. But if I saw one I’ll definitely buy another copy. I want one with the yeti doodle.

Under The Never Sky by Veronica Rossi
The Gathering Storm by Robin Bridges
Cinder (Lunar Chronicles) by Marissa Meyer

I’m also surprised to see these three books above available from local book stores which are all perfectly fit for Debut Reading Challenge. I didn’t expect to see these books to be available here this soon since it is not always that our local book stores get copies of recently released books. I guess our local book stores are improving. I really don’t know what to expect from all these books but I’m excited to read Cinder because of Fiktshun‘s high rating review for this one.

I’ll be posting the other books I acquired in my next IMM post. Some of those books I acquired earlier than these books but since they don’t fit under new releases I decided to separate them. What about the rest of you, what books did you get this week?