The following may contain spoilers, okay? Okay.
The Fault In Our Stars is, as you well know, a popular novel and recent film adaptation about two young cancer patients who fall in love, only to find that love extinguished by an untimely, yet predictable death. So why do people love this story so much? What makes it stand out from other stories of cancer and shattered love?
One of the most common answers to such questions is the basic idea that the story is appealing because it's "real life." Whereas most novels portray cancer as a walk in the park, The Fault In Our Stars describes cancer patients as a side effect of a mutation that was supposed to make humans, who happened by chance, more diverse. Excuse me for arguing that neither of those portrayals are correct. I am not speaking from experience because I don't have cancer. But I know from friends and family members who have experienced it that it isn't pretty or easy. This book describes that portrayal as "sugarcoating," which is probably a fair description. But although TFIOS most definitely doesn't sugarcoat anything, I simply don't understand how you could call it honesty. This book incorrectly conveys normal teenagers, cancer patients, and life in general. No such thing should be praised for its reality.
Another aspect of the book I have found to be popular is the narrator, Hazel, and her outlook on life, death, and the world. Some of the most quoted lines of the book are about inevitable oblivion, vanity of life, and the question of afterlife. Everything she says is out of an agnostic point of view. Readers find this appealing because it changes the ideas of living, dying, and life after that. But I don't find this healthy for Christians, or for anyone else. I would not encourage anyone to read a book about how life is pointless, worthless, and insignificant, because that simply isn't true. If a book or film started out by saying, "The following content is largely negative and largely false," no one would waste time reading it. But this book claims to be telling the truth about the fact that life means nothing, death is all we amount to, and the world is just a chance happening that will one day end in oblivion. The intended audience of this book (that is to say, teenaged fanatics of emotional roller coaster novels) go into it believing they are reading a variation of the truth, when in fact Romans 1 says it is the opposite of the truth; a suppressing of the truth. Teens are being lied to, as they often are, about the truth in theology. In this book, teens are also being lied to about being lied to. How can one make a positive spin on that?
The Fault In Our Stars was incredibly well-written and dripping with emotional appeal. Isn't that what you want in a good book? Perhaps, but a book this extreme in its worldview and incomplete truth is not healthy for young readers, or for any readers at all. Scripture contradicts this book, and so does every positive moral in the world. Humans are NOT insignificant, cancer patients are NOT side effects, and oblivion is NOT inevitable. Any book that claims otherwise shouldn't be read, recommended, and definitely not praised in the way The Fault In Our Stars has been these past few months.
