For five months after graduating with a double-major in English and Religious Studies from Kenyon College, author and YouTuber John Greenworked as a student chaplin at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. That experience, combined with losing a young friend named Esther to cancer, shaped what would eventually become one of the best-selling books of all time: The Fault in our Stars.
On working on the book Green said, “I tried to write that book for almost 10 years. Ever since I worked as a chaplain, I would go back, I was trying to work on what I called the Children’s Hospital Story, although in all of its previous incarnations, it starred this 22-year-old hospital chaplain, who was, like, surprisingly handsome and, like, hooking up with doctors. It was very embarrassing. I hope that — it was just terrible. But you know, I would go back to that story and go back to it and go back to it. Then in 2010 a good friend of mine died of cancer, a young friend, and I went back to the story, and I went back to it angry and needing to work.”
In 2011, Green worked on the novel while serving as the artist in residence in Amsterdam with the Dutch Foundation for Literature. He also shaped what would become the final manuscript in collaboration with his long-time editor Julie Strauss-Gabel.
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For over six months prior to the novel being published, pre-orders for The Fault in Our Stars contributed to the book being a number one seller on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The book debuted at number on on the New York Times bestseller list in 2012, where it would remain for 43 weeks. The novel spent over two years in the top ten list for bestsellers.
The Fault in Our Stars is a heartbreaking but hopeful story following 16-year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster who is facing a diagnosis of terminal thyroid cancer. Her parents force her to attend a support group where she meets 17-year-old Augustus Waters, an ex-basketball player and amputee who survived osteosarcoma. The pair are immediately drawn to each other, and Hazel’s worldview completely shifts as she discovers what it means to be alive, living, and in love.
The Fault in our Stars has been called “damn near genius” and “a smartly crafted intellectual explosion of a romance.” A film adaptation starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort was released in 2014 to critical and box office acclaim and success.
Good things take time, and evidenced by the success and response from fans for The Fault in our Stars, the decade it took Green to get to the final chapter was well worth it.
Related: John Green Announces Debut Adult Fiction Novel
