John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

John Green's story about two teens with cancer who find true love in a support group is pretty much a perfect book. The subject matter is the sort of thing I would normally run from: there's enough sadness in the world that I don't normally want to subject myself to it in fiction. But while the book is sad, it is not primarily so, I don't think. Certainly one can revel in the love story Green's characters get to enjoy, whatever the confinements and brevity of their lives. I was, at any rate, forced to read the book by my twelve-year-old daughter. Having finished it, she collapsed in some kind of swoon on the floor of my study. Upon reviving, she pressed the book into my hands, opened it to the first page, and commanded me to begin.