John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars is a fabulous, must-read book about a teenage girl diagnosed with lung cancer who finds love while fighting the disease.

Grace is a sixteen-year-old girl with cancer, caught up in the effort it takes to live in a body that everyone knows is doomed to an untimely end. When she agrees to return to her local teen cancer support group, the last thing she expects is an encounter with fate. New to the group, Augustus Waters is handsome, bitingly sarcastic, and in remission. The two are immediately taken with each other, and what begins as a casual friendship soon escalates into a full romance.

Through an impressive exchange of books, thoughts, philosophies and metaphors, Hazel and Augustus explore in depth what it means to be both star-crossed lovers and imminently mortal.

John Green’s much-anticipated novel The Fault in Our Stars is breathtaking in its ability to alternate between iridescent humour and raw tragedy. Hazel and Augustus are both fully realised, complex characters that each defy what it means to be a cancer patient in a unique way.

While Hazel fixates about how her death will eventually hurt her loved ones, Augustus obsesses about how he will be remembered; the two are drawn together by the justified anxiety they feel over endings. This novel is not only for the young set, it’s for all ages. It’s not only about the fight against cancer; it’s about what it means to live life to the fullest every day, every minute. We should be thankful for this time especially if we are lucky enough to find love and be capable of giving.

This story is beautiful, funny, heartbreaking and poignant. It’s impossible to read this bold, raw and totally honest portrayal of what it is to be a teenager, as one reviewer put it, without both crying your eyes out and laughing your head off.

This famous novel written by John Green has been adapted into a movie which premiers on 6 June in a cinema near you. If it’s anything like the book, you’ll love it.