MEMORABLE PASSAGE

And then the line was quite but not dead. I almost felt like he was there in my room with me, but in a way it was better, like I was not in my room and he was not in his, but instead we were together in some invisible and tenuous third space that could only be visited on the phone.

I love how self-aware, but also how unashamedly bookish, this book is.  Hazel herself states that cancer books suck. But she loves Imperial Affliction, which is a (fictional) cancer book. And The Fault In Our Stars is certainly a cancer book. But the book is also highly aware that it's a cancer book and strives (and in my opinion, succeeds) at being so much more. I also love when an author very plainly and unashamedly loves to reference and nod to literature. This book makes numerous references to great literature such as The Great Gatsby, Ulysses, many great poets, and of course Shakespeare. I have a feeling there are many references that I didn't even pick up on, as I am certainly not the most well-read person in the world. There are SO many foreshadowing examples that basically spell it out for us that Augustus will die first. He always hangs up the phone first.  Both characters press "play" on the in-flight movie at the same time, but Augustus starts (and ends) first. Hazel is our first-person narrator, and since Imperial Affliction ends with the death of its first-person narrator, it seems unlikely The Fault In Our Stars will. But I was still shocked when Gus tells Hazel about about his diagnosis. I suppose it's because I was beginning to believe, like Hazel, that they would be together until she died.