The Fault in Our Stars is a contemporary teen romance in the way that Paris is a city in Europe and ice cream is a type of dessert. It tells the story of Hazel Grace and Augustus, Midwestern “cancer kids” who meet at a support group and connect over their fatalistic sarcasm and mutual attraction. They've both been maimed by their illnesses—Augustus has had a leg amputated, and Hazel needs oxygen tubes to support her damaged lungs—and though they delight in mocking the usual cancer narratives of “miracle” drugs and stoic, saintly patients, their story doesn't dodge the cruelties of juvenile disease. It’s not all grim: There’s fumbling teen sex in hospital beds and friends who do and don’t understand, and a pickled literary recluse in Amsterdam whom the two cash in a Make-a-Wish Foundation gift to visit.
More than 7 million hardcover copies of Fault (a paperback was released in March) have circulated widely—among middle school English classes, from teen to tween, from child to parent to grandparent, and beyond. A movie adaptation is coming out in early June, further initiating anyone not yet familiar with the tale and its author, John Green, a 36-year-old writer who lives in Indianapolis. If you know what to look for, you’ll find Fault references everywhere in the teen/tween universe: on Instagram, in school lockers and libraries, on T-shirts and text sign-offs.
Green is also one of the most trusted people on the Web. Since 2006, he and his brother Hank have hosted (or posted) short videos of themselves, as theVlogbrothers. The two also produce a popular educational series called CrashCourse, and Green and his wife, Sarah, do a PBS series called The Art Assignment. Together these have captured more than a billion and a half views. Since Green is averse to cross-platform promotion, he rarely mentions his book releases on his videos, and his Web popularity doesn’t really explain the breadth and success of his books. But all his media speak to teenagers in an unusually direct and sympathetic way.
Inside jokes and shared passions were out in force at the recent Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which was held on the University of Southern California campus. A group of local seventh graders had gathered the night before to make Fault-related clothing they could have bought online (“homemade is better”) and to paint their faces with a signature Hazel/Augustus exchange (“OK? OK”). That the couple’s romance sprang from the imagination of a 36-year-old Midwestern guy with a wife and kids and the occasional anxiety issue isn’t lost on them. “It’s incredible,” 12-year-old Daniella says, “that he can write a book about two cancer kids and make it something we can freak out about.”
Wyck Godfrey, part of the production team that made the Twilight movies, produced the film adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars, as well as filming Green’s third novel, a high school road trip mystery called Paper Towns. The way Green’s teenage characters relate to one another, with their sharp wit, reminds Godfrey of the John Hughes characters he wanted to be as a kid. Compared with most summer movies, he says, The Fault in Our Stars is low-budget and tackles less than sunny material. But while “it’s kind of an anti-blockbuster, we all believe that it’ll play like one.” He thinks much of Green’s appeal lies in the credit he gives his audience. “The intelligence with which John treats teenagers is refreshing to them. They’re not all just a bunch of YouTube-watching empty vessels. They’re asking big questions. They’re funny in the least expected ways.”
Treating kids’ problems and concerns like they matter is essential to Green. “For all the adult concern that Facebook (FB) and Instagram are warping their minds into echo chambers of self-obsession,” he says, “I’ve found that if you treat them as if they are smart and curious, they will respond in kind. I think they’re so often undervalued by pop culture, particularly by the big corporations that churn stuff out for them. A lot of kids are really excited to be thought of as smart.”
Growing up in Orlando, Green was a nerd with a Prodigy account and good intentions. “I was always interested in communities and how I could participate in them,” he says, splashing room service chardonnay into his glass. “I mean, I wanted to be a minister.” Green has 45 minutes in his hotel before attending the book festival, where he’ll receive the Innovators Award and generally upstage Pulitzer-winning journalists, important biographers, and world-renowned poets. He crosses his legs and considers the chardonnay before he takes a sip, wondering if sleepy is what you want to be before you go to the L.A. Times Book Prizes.”
Source: business week
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