What He Wanted To Be

I recently finished "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green, which I found to be possibly the best book I've read all year. (I finished it over a week ago and don't have the book with me so I don't remember every single detail).  In the book, two teens fighting different types of cancer, Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters, bond over their similar opinions and thoughts about life and literature. They travel to Amsterdam to meet the author of the book they both came to love only to find out he's a rude drunk. This led me to think that throughout the book several people end up being very different than they appeared to be.

First, Van Houten turned out to be a drunk. When Hazel Grace first introduces "An Imperial Affliction" to Augustus neither of them have any clue what the author is like as a person. I think Hazel and Augustus assumed because of his views expressed in the book, (though Hazel never really says clearly what these views are) they assumed Van Houten would be just like them and share their ideas because he wrote about them in his book. I think who Hazel and Augustus really should've met was the character from "An Imperial Affliction" because Van Houten might not've necessarily agreed with the thoughts he wrote about and gave to the character in his book. I think Van Houten didn't write about himself in the book, but what he wanted to be. I think Van Houten wanted to be like Hazel and Augustus and wrote like he was, which I think made him angry when they come to him and he sees what he wanted to be.

I think in the real world it's easy for someone to want to change themselves or to want to be something they know they aren't, and I think accepting this can be really hard. I think if you really aren't what you wish you were and you can see a perfect example of what you wish you were right in front of you that you'd react just like Van Houten did. I think Van Houten saw the change he wanted to make, but because he knew it was so intangible that it upset him so much.