The Fault in Our Stars
John Green
 Narrator Hazel Grace Lancaster, a sixteen-year-old girl with terminal cancer, was pulled out of school at thirteen and rarely socializes with people her age. After being diagnosed with clinical depression, she joins a support group for children with cancer where she meets Augustus Waters, a seventeen-year-old boy in remission from osteosarcoma. Hazel introduces Augustus to her favorite novel, the fictional Peter Van Houten's An Imperial Affliction, about another girl with cancer who nevertheless lives a good life—until the novel ends mid-sentence. Hazel's attempts to contact Van Houten have always been futile, but Augustus—who also takes interest in the novel—contacts Van Houten via email. The author promises to answer any questions about the book if the two come to Amsterdam. Augustus uses a "Wish" he received because of his previous poor health to take Hazel and her mother to Amsterdam. Van Houten presents himself as a rude alcoholic. Hazel finds his comments and demeanor troubling, and leaves Van Houten's home, followed by his assistant, who quits out of anger. The group then visits Anne Frank's house, where Augustus and Hazel share a passionate kiss. They decide to go back to Augustus's hotel room, where they sleep together. Soon after this, Augustus reveals that he recently had a PET scan that found new tumors. In the remaining weeks of his life back in Indianapolis, Hazel sees Augustus slowly deteriorating, and begins to break down mentally- lashing out at her parents and avoiding friends. Augustus asks to have a funeral that he can watch, so approximately eight days before his death, Hazel and Isaac, a cancer patient in remission who had both of his eyes removed, share their eulogies with Augustus. When Augustus finally dies, Hazel has expected it for some time, but she is still crushed. At his funeral she does not give the eulogy she gave him previously, deciding that "funerals are for the living". To her bewilderment, she finds that Peter Van Houten has attended Augustus's funeral and, as he tries to reconcile with her, Hazel realizes that he wrote An Imperial Affliction because of his own experiences. She is revealed to be correct, and learns that he lost his daughter to cancer when she was eight years old. Hazel talks to Isaac, and he mentions that Augustus said he was writing something for Hazel, but Isaac did not know what it was. Hazel believes that it was the alternate ending Augustus had promised to write for An Imperial Affliction. She searches his room, her room, and any other place she believes it could be, before finally coming to the conclusion that the piece he wrote was not for her, but perhaps for Peter. She emails his assistant who promises to look for it, and subsequently Hazel learns through an email that the missing pages of Augustus's notebook were actually a eulogy he had written for her, and intended Peter to proofread. At the very end of the novel, Augustus's letter to Van Houten reads, "You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers." To this, Hazel replies, "I do, Augustus, I do."