Feel pain. Love deeply.
John Green was enrolled at University of Chicago Divinity School, preparing to become an Episcopal priest. He was doing his CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education), working as a chaplain when he conceived of The Fault in Our Stars. The book hit the top of the NYT bestseller list and Green didn’t go to Div School. Though the book might be assigned reading in seminary now. At least Katherine Willis Pershey thinks it should be.
The John Green oeuvre is something that I share with my teen daughter. She tells me which ones to read. (Evidently, Looking for Alaska is too depressing. Even more depressing than reading about cancer kids.) I listened to An Abundance of Katherines while gardening and contemplating my own circuitous move from Chicago to Tennessee. My daughter read Will Grayson, Will Grayson to me on a road trip--expertly leaving out the more embarrassing parts. So, we had to see the Fault in Our Stars the day it was released.
The actors were beautiful and ordinary. They took on the emotional richness of the characters with ease, and the central themes rang with clarity.
