My thoughts are stars I can't fathom into constellations.

[nausicaa83]

What have I done for the past three hours? Reading The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. From start to finish.

This is it, this is the one book about cancer, and there won't ever be another one about it, because this is THE book.

I've been, I am, every character in this book. The cancer patient, the survivor, the family member, the kid in the hospital playground, the one changing the sheets, the one searching frantically for the loved one's last written pages. I've done the jokes, I've heard the jokes, I've been the one sitting in the first row at funerals despising the not-friends talking.

I just checked, it's just 313 pages, and yet everything is there. Everything I've ever experienced all those years with cancer being the new member of the family, the one that was me and not me even when it wasn't in my body, and John Green managed to record it all and put it on the written page.

There are two things I need to do now: buy two copies of this book, one for my aunt and one for my therapist. And then eat because I kinda have skipped lunch and I'm maybe having sort of a little panic attack. But I really, really needed this book in a way I can't possibly explain.

Comments

[space-oddity-75.livejournal.com]

A therapeutic book is a book that says the things you've always wanted to say and never got round to put to paper, although you wish you'd written them yourself. When the taboo of the illness is overcome and only the reality of the experience remains, raw and strong and oh-so-very-there, only then can a person come to terms with how much a life-changing experience this has been.

I don't know whether I'm past the taboo stage yet, having had little first-hand experience with this illness (my grandma and a few relatives died of cancer, but I was too young to understand all the implications), so I think I'm probably going to buy and read this book, in order to be able to understand a bit more about this topic and avoid being the stupid one who talks about stuff she doesn't know when I'm around people who have dealt or are dealing with it.

Thanks for the heads up. I'm sure this book will make a very interesting read.

[nausicaa83.livejournal.com]

Letto questo libro saprai più o meno tutto quello che c'è da sapere sull'argomento. Vorrei potermi materializzare da John Green, abbracciarlo forte e forte e ringraziarlo di persona.