When I was younger, reading was my entire world. While other kids snuck around playing their Nintendo DS under the covers, I was curled up with a flashlight, completely lost in the world of Junie B. Jones. A book bin was in my childhood car so I could read anywhere — long drives, on the way to school, even on my way to soccer practice. Books were one of my only places of comfort.
As I got older, my love started to fade. None of my friends were readers, and suddenly, reading didn’t seem as cool anymore. The flip of a page couldn’t do it for me anymore, I thought I was moving onto a new chapter, and I found myself picking books up less and less. It didn’t occur to me that my love never went away, it just was overpowered by everything else.
That story was The Fault in Our Stars.
The book came out in 2012 when I was in second grade, but I didn’t read it until 2015, when I was in fifth grade. I remember picking it up and immediately falling in love with the characters. It was the first book that hit me hard. I had never read something so emotionally intense. I never knew my love for John Green’s writing would stay with me for life. The way he built the world of Hazel and Gus, with their words and thoughts felt so real. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced before.
The Fault in Our Stars follows Hazel Grace Lancaster, a sixteen-year-old girl living with cancer, who joins a cancer support group — per her mother’s request. Enters in Augustus Waters, a boy whose personality fills up an entire room and changes her world. Together they navigate their relationship in a book that is filled with love, loss, and the impact of leaving a mark on the world.
A month later, I watched the movie with my mom and fell even harder. Seeing everything come to life on screen only made my love for the story grow. And then there was Amsterdam. I had never seen the city before, never even thought about it much, but that film changed everything. The canals, the Anne Frank House, the tucked-away beauty of the city—it became my dream destination, all because of a book.
“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” – John Green
That was exactly how I felt. It restored my love for books in a way I never expected. After finishing it, I couldn’t stop reading. I devoured story after story, desperate to chase that feeling again, to lose myself in another story as deeply as I had in that one.
Now, at 20 years old, reading is still my safe haven. It has kept me sane through the chaos of growing up, through the ups and downs of life. Books have let me experience worlds I could never visit. And it all started with one story about love and loss.