by Hannah Miller and Jamie Walters 
 
The Fault in Our Stars, a novel by John Green, was first published in January 2012. This is his fourth solo novel. The book spent seven weeks on the New York Times best-seller list as well as many weeks as the number one seller on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com in June 2011 when the title was announced. The book made literary history when Green promised to sign every pre-order. John and his brother, Hank Green, already had a large internet following due to a series of YouTube videos called “Vlog Brothers”. Fans of the “Vlog Brothers” call themselves nerdfighters (those who fight “world suck,” not those who fight nerds) and were some of the early, but not the only, supporters of The Fault in Our Stars.
 
John Green said that the inspiration for this novel came from his time spent as a chaplain at a children’s hospital and from a “nerdfighter” named Esther, who died from cancer in 2010.
 
Green said, “The characters came to me first. I worked as a student chaplain at a children’s hospital about 12 years ago for five months. And during that time I wanted to, I started wanting to write about these kinds of young people and it just took a while.”
 
The Fault in Our Stars addresses issues of cancer, life, love and loss through the main characters, Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus “Gus” Waters. Both Hazel and Augustus are teenage cancer survivors and The Fault in Our Stars follows their young lives over a period of months.