Chapter 1-3
Sixteen-year-old Hazel Lancaster, on behalf of whom the story is being narrated, lives in a small town in Indiana. The girl has thyroid cancer and lung metastases. Hazel can only breathe with an oxygen cylinder, and at night it is connected to a large oxygen concentrator. She rarely leaves the house, lies in bed and reads the same book. The girl’s mother decides that her daughter is depressed and insists that Hazel attend a weekly support group.
A support group gathers in the basement of the city episcopal church with a cruciform foundation. Cancer patients visiting her sit in the center of the cross - right in the heart of Jesus, as the group leader likes to repeat. These gatherings oppress Hazel. In the group, she only communicates with Isaac, who has a rare form of the disease - eyeball cancer. He had already lost one eye, now under the threat of a second. Hazel continues to visit the group only for the sake of his parents.
Worse than being a teenager with oncology, there is only one thing: being a child with oncology.
At one of the meetings, Hazel met seventeen-year-old Augustus Waters. A few years ago, he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma and his leg was taken away, after which he was declared BDP (without signs of cancer). Throughout the meeting, this handsome guy does not take his eyes off Hazel, and the girl thinks about her cheeks and ankles, thick due to the constant use of steroids.
Gus admits to the group that he is most afraid of oblivion. To this, Hazel replies that oblivion is for all of humanity, so this fear must be ignored. The girl read this idea in the book “Royal Ailment”, the only novel of her beloved author - the Dutchman Peter van Houten.
After the meeting, Gus invites Heyozel to his home to watch a movie with Natalie Portman, which, in his opinion, looks like a girl. Hazel agrees, but as he walks to a stop he sees Gus stick a cigarette in his mouth. The girl is indignant: she breathes with difficulty, and Gus voluntarily kills his lungs. The guy convinces Hazel that he does not light cigarettes.
This is a metaphor, look: you are holding deadly rubbish in your teeth, but you are not giving her the opportunity to fulfill her deadly mission.
On the way to Gus's house, the girl tells her story. Hazel's fourth degree thyroid cancer was discovered at the age of thirteen, and at fourteen found lung metastases. All methods of treatment were tried on it and finally a medicine was found that stopped the growth of metastases. The drug left Hazel lungs that could barely cope with their function, but they are projected to last "indefinitely." The girl can lead a relatively normal lifestyle and attend lectures at a local college, where she is in her first year.
Augustus' house is full of biblical sayings, which Gus's parents call "approvals." On the shelves in his room, Hazel saw a lot of basketball prizes - Gus did this sport before the operation. Hazel tells Gus about his favorite book, and he decides to read it.
The next day, Hazel meets with his former classmate, trying to communicate with her, as before, but it does not matter.
Obviously, everyone I’m destined to talk with for the rest of my days will feel awkward and remorseful.
This is probably why Hazel has so few friends. Having excused herself by pains and fatigue, the girl quickly says goodbye to her friend and gains for herself a few minutes of loneliness, without the care of an overly vigorous mother. Hazel doesn’t lie about pain - she always hurts.
Chapter 4-6
In the evening, the girl re-reads her favorite novel.This is a story about a California girl named Anna who has a rare form of cancer. About this disease in the novel it is said extremely honestly.
Children with oncology are inherently side effects of a ruthless mutation, due to which life on Earth is so diverse.
Further, Anna becomes worse, and her mother falls in love with the Dutch tulip merchant, whom the heroine considers a rogue and calls Tulip Dutchman. Mother and the Dutchman are going to get married, and Anna is preparing for a new course of treatment when the romance ends in mid-sentence.
Hazel believes that Anna has died, but she is interested to know how the life of the other characters of the novel has developed. She wrote a dozen letters to Peter Vann Hooten, but never received an answer - having moved from the USA to the Netherlands, he became a recluse. Hazel hopes that he is working on a sequel to the novel, but he cannot wait long.
Hazel is calling Augustus. He is disappointed with the uncertain end of the novel and is eager to continue. Gus calls Hazel to himself to support Isaac, whom the girl abandoned on the eve of the operation.
Gus' final opinion on the novel is formed in Gus only after a week. He calls Hazel and says that he managed to contact the writer by e-mail through his assistant Lideview Wligenhart. In response to the letter from the baths, Huten reports that he has not written anything else and is not going to write. On the same day, Hazel sends an email to the writer with questions about the future of the heroes of the novel.
Isaac is undergoing surgery and officially announcing a BDP. Isaac is now healthy and blind. Hazel visits a friend in the hospital - he still suffers from the betrayal of his girlfriend, who promised to stay with him forever.
I believe in true love, understand? People lose their eyes, get sick, what the hell, but everyone should have real love, which lasts at least until the end of life!
The next day, Hazel receives a letter from van Houten. He claims that he can not answer her questions - she can turn his letter into a sequel to the novel. He discusses such things only in private conversation, but he is not going to leave Holland. The writer invites the girl to visit, knowing that she has cancer of the last degree.
Hazel did not have enough health or money for a transatlantic flight - the Lancaster family spent all their savings on the treatment of their daughter. The Ginny Foundation gives children with oncology the fulfillment of their cherished desire, but Hazel has long spent her desire on a trip to Disney Land.
Gus is arranging a Dutch-style picnic for Hazel on Saturday and announces that he intends to spend his desire on a trip to the Netherlands.
Remember, I’m not going to give you my Desire. But I, too, had an interest in meeting with Peter van Houten, and without the girl who introduced me to his book, it makes no sense to meet with him.
The attending physician Hazel allows the girl to fly to Europe only accompanied by an adult who knows about the features of her illness. At the family council, they decide that the girl will fly with her mother.
At a picnic, Augustus wanted to kiss Hazel, but the girl was not ready for such a relationship. Now she is trying to figure out why she does not want the kisses of the guy she likes so much. On the Internet, she finds information about Gus's former girlfriend, who died of brain cancer, and realizes that she does not want to make him suffer again. Hazel feels like a grenade that is about to explode, and wants to "minimize casualties." Unfortunately, she cannot protect her parents from grief.
Chapter 7-9
Due to oxygen deficiency, Hazel has terrible pains. In the hospital, it turns out that the girls’s lungs are full of fluid. For six days, Hazel is confined to a hospital bed in the intensive care unit.
People talk about the courage of cancer patients, and I do not deny this courage. ‹...› But do not be fooled: at that moment I would be sincerely glad to die.
Hazel does not find new metastases in the body. When the fluid is pumped out of the lungs, the girl becomes easier.She reads a letter written by van Houten with her own hand and decides to fly to Holland despite the objections of the doctors.
Soon a letter arrives from Lideview. She reports that the Ginny Foundation confirmed their trip. After receiving the consent of Dr. Maria, Hazel, accompanied by her mother and Augustus, goes to Amsterdam.
Chapter 10-13
On the way to the airport, Hazel calls in for Gus and becomes an unwitting witness to the scandal: his parents do not want to let Gus into Amsterdam, but he defends this right. At the airport, Hazel feels surprised and curious looks.
Sometimes it’s the worst for a cancer patient - the physical symptoms of the disease separate you from others. We were unequivocally and completely different, and this was manifested with particular obviousness.
On the plane, when Hazel's mom falls asleep, Augustus declares her love. A wave of strange, painful joy rises in her, but she cannot say this to Gus.
The flight goes well. Having settled in the inexpensive hotel "Philosopher" and slept, Hazel goes for a romantic dinner with Gus. They sit at an open table, drink champagne and watch the elm seeds fall on the water of the canals. After dinner, it turns out that it has already been paid by van Houten. Gus tells Hazel about his girlfriend with a brain tumor that died almost insane.
The next day, Hazel and Augustus meet with Van Houten. This meeting terribly disappoints them: the writer is a fat, heavy drinking boor. He refuses to answer questions, claims that Hazel depends on the pity of others, and calls it a side effect of evolution.
Van Houten was looking for the most offensive way to tell the truth that I had long known. I ‹...› many months ago I found the most painful ways to describe my condition.
Hazel leaves the writer’s house in tears. She catches up with Lideview and offers to visit the house of Nazi victim Anne Frank, turned into a museum. There, Hazel and Augustus kiss for the first time and break the applause of tourists. Then, in the hotel, the first proximity takes place between them. The next day, Gus admits to Hazel that his remission is over, he has metastases everywhere - in the liver, in his left thigh ... He interrupted treatment for a trip to Amsterdam, his parents were against it. The fear of oblivion returns to Augustus.
Chapter 14-20
Returning home, Augustus begins treatment. Hazel is with him every day. It is painful for her to watch how her beloved weakens every day. Visits Gus and Isaac. One day, Gus, angry at Isaac's ex-girlfriend, decides to take revenge on her. With the whole company they go to the girl’s house and throw her car with raw eggs.
After some time, Gus ends up in intensive care, after which he can only move in a wheelchair. The last stage of the disease comes.
It's damn hard to maintain dignity when the rising sun is too bright in your fading eyes.
Gus dreamed that the world would know about him, and all the country's major newspapers would print his obituary. But now he is dying in obscurity, and only darkness lies ahead. One night, Augustus himself managed to get out of the house and get to the gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes. He wanted to prove to himself that at least he could do it himself. He doesn’t get home himself, he calls Hazel, she arrives and calls for an ambulance.
Gus returns from the hospital "devoid of illusions completely and unconditionally." Now it is completely dependent on the pain medication.
These were the days of pajamas and combing of growing stubble, slurred requests and scattering in endless thanks for everything that others did for him.
Each person dying of cancer has its own Last good day, when the disease releases its victim for several hours. Gus spends his day with Hazel and Isaac "in the heart of Jesus." He asks his friends to write obituaries for him, and then read them to him.
Chapter 21-25
Gus dies eight days after his Last Good Day.In the last days, the visits of Hazel and Augustus were greatly reduced, but this did not reduce the suffering of the girl.
Losing a person with whom memories connect you is like losing a memory.
At the funeral service and funeral, there is Peter van Houten, who read about the death of Augustus on his page on the social network. After the funeral, which Hazel is having a hard time, the writer tries to call the girl to talk. He reports that before his death, Gus wrote to him and promised to forgive his boorish behavior if he tells Hazel about the fate of the characters in the novel. The girl does not want to listen to van Houten and drives him away.
The next day, Hazel visits Isaac and learns from him that Gus wrote for her something like a sequel to her favorite book. Hazel gets into the car to drive home to Augustus, and discovers the not sober van Houten in the back seat. He tries to apologize to Hazel, and at this moment the girl realizes that in the writer’s family, someone also died from cancer. Van Houten admits that his daughter died of leukemia and became the prototype of the main character of the novel. He was stunned by the appearance of Hazel, dressed as Anna. The girl is sorry for the writer. She advises him to go home and write another novel, and then leaves him on the side of the road.
The girl finds nothing in Gus’s room. Three days later, Augustus' father informs her that he found Gus's notebook with torn sheets. Hazel decides that the pages are hidden in the "heart of Jesus," but there is nothing there either.
Parents surround Hazel with vigilant attention. The girl is afraid that they have dissolved in her, and after her death they will not be able to live on. She talks about this with her mother, and she admits that she has been studying at the university for a year as a social worker. She did not want Hazel to know about this and thought that the mother had planned ahead how to live after the death of her daughter. Parents swear to Hazel that they will not divorce after her death.
Girlfriend makes Hazel think that Gus was not writing for her and managed to send his notes. The girl writes Lideview, she finds the records of Gus at van Houten and forwards them to Hazel. Notes are not a sequel, but a letter. Gus asks Van Houten to write a novel based on his outline. He explains to the writer that, like most people, he wants to leave a mark on history. But such marks often look like scars. Hazel is different.
Hazel knows the truth: we have as much opportunity to harm the universe as to help it, and it is unlikely that we could succeed in the first or second.
Real heroes do not act, but watch, and Hazel is just that. Gus writes about his love for Hazel, and considers this feeling to be the very trace that he wanted to leave behind. He hopes that Hazel is pleased with her choice, and the girl confirms: “You are hoping right, Augustus. And there is".
