On page 99 my eyes watered for the first time and on page 103 I had to stop reading because my heart broke and I was crying. Then, after having read more than a hundred fairly good books (I consider myself lucky), it occurred to me that one does not simply read books but rather experiences them. And even though this is not the first book I have actually experienced, it is the first one to make me realize this.
I cried a lot after that page 103, and I hated the fact that the book was so popular and I couldn’t just keep it to myself. Everything in it sounded so honest and pure and truthful and partly even hurtful. I read the whole of it in two days, and it took me so long because I had to take breaks and remind myself that the story was a work of fiction.
On page 229 I already knew what was going to happen in the end. But I kept reading. I kept reading because the very thought of that happening scared the crap out of me. But that was okay because I was wrong. I did know what was going to happen, but I didn’t know how I was going to feel about it. Because by the end I had cried all my tears and it was only appreciation left. Appreciation and gratitude that somebody wrote something that means so much to me.
When I bought my copy of The Fault in Our Stars from that small airport bookshop in Berlin, there were three more copies of it on the shelf. I bet that there were at least ten others in stock there and hundreds, maybe even thousands, in stock all around the world. But once again I am happy to be wrong because this book’s popularity doesn’t make it any less mine. I have lived through it, I have experienced it in my own way with my own feelings put into it. And isn’t this what makes a book one and unique?
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