You'll laugh, you'll cry at rare, lovely romantic moments

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LATELY it seems as if popular young-adult fiction is split between supernatural romances a la Twilight and post-apocalyptic worlds a la The Hunger Games. These scenarios, it seems, appeal to teens' heightened sense of drama about their love lives and the trials of adolescence in general.

The teenage protagonists in John Green's luminous, unforgettable fourth novel have drama out the wazoo, too -- life-and-death battles to fight and insurmountable obstacles to overcome -- but the danger they face is far less outlandish than vampires or hand-to-hand arena combat.

Sixteen-year-old Hazel Lancaster has cancer, inoperable, incurable thyroid cancer that has spread to her lungs. She has been terminal since age 13; the growth of her tumours has been halted by a miracle drug, but it's only a matter of time.

Unable to attend high school, owing to the fact that her lungs periodically fill with fluid, confining her to bed, she keeps herself occupied by watching marathons of bad reality TV that she's too smart for.

She attends a cancer support group for kids, approaching it with all the eye-rolling cynicism of a 16-year-old, until she meets Augustus Waters at a meeting. He's a former star basketball player in remission from the osteosarcoma that took his leg and he is, in a word, dreamy.

What follows is agrand romance -- as grand a romance as it can be when both parties still live with their parents and one is tethered to an oxygen tank. And in Green's hands, that's pretty damned grand.

Green, the web-savvy Indianapolis-based author of Looking for Alaska, has a rabid following for his YA work -- The Fault in Our Stars jumped to No. 1 on the Amazon.com bestseller list in June 2011, six months before its release, thanks to pre-orders -- and it's well-earned.

He has an ear for dialogue -- the crisp, sarcastic interplay between Hazel and Augustus makes them sound like a teen Hepburn and Tracy -- and a sly way of approaching big existential questions.

The withdrawn Hazel has had to live for years with the knowledge that her parents will outlive her. Sometimes this makes her older than her years, sometimes it makes her a brat (her relationship with her parents is as delightfully complex and real as her relationship with Augustus), but it has given her undeniably grown-up insight.

"Depression is not a side-effect of cancer," she explains. "Depression is a side-effect of dying. (Cancer is also a side-effect of dying. Almost everything is, really.)"

The novel does suffer a bit from Juno syndrome, in that, much like the verbose teens in that movie, its young characters are far more eloquent, droll and wise than the average high schooler, but Green knows that smart kids do imagine themselves talking this way, even if they're mired in "like, whatever" monosyllabics.

Whether they're playing video games, arguing about the afterlife or flying to Amsterdam to meet Hazel's favourite author, the nihilistic, reclusive Peter van Houten, the two are painfully attuned to the fragility of their situation and yet able to find black humour in almost everything.

The hackneyed old phrase "You'll laugh, you'll cry" has rarely been more true; The Fault in Our Stars elicits fits of giggles and sobs in about equal measure.

Green never shies away from the realities of illness, but he's never maudlin. It's the way the characters deal with their grim circumstances and revel in the rare lovely moments that makes the romance all the more swoon-worthy, even without benefit of vampires.

Jill Wilson is a Free Press copy editor.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 4, 2012 J9