John Green's The Fault in Our Stars deserves its international fame for its exquisite balance between philosophy and entertainment, grief and humor, love and pain, life and death. The novel features three predominant teenagers who all suffer varying degrees of relapses with their cancer and meet in a cancer support group: Hazel, Isaac, and Augustus. Green's scenery is perfectly vivid, from the park in Indianapolis to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. In the Anne Frank House, where Hazel and Augustus have their first kiss, Hazel sees that under Anne Frank's name in the book with the names of the Holocaust victims are four Aron Franks "without museums, without historical markers, without anyone to mourn them." Though non-religious, Green's protagonist determines "to pray for the four Aron Franks" (201). This poignant moment, and others scattered throughout the novel, proves that the reason The Fault in Our Stars stands out from other YA novels, even other John Green novels, is the realistic portrayal of mourning and the struggle of endurance through pain, both physical and emotional. In their first meeting; Hazel and Augustus speak of oblivion. As they continue to get to know each other, especially through Hazel's favorite book "An Imperial Affliction," Augustus continually dwells on his desire to leave his mark, while Hazel worries about leaving a trace. During a large portion of the book, she resisted a relationship with Gus so he could avoid the pain of her inevitable death, but then she realized that he wanted to choose that pain -and, as with the ending, she made the same choice. Throughout the narrative Hazel learns that even though there are many things about life you cannot choose, you can choose to love the choices you do have the opportunity to make, and she decides that she loves her choices. Even after reading this book dozens of times, that line never fails to bring this reader to tears. John Green's masterpiece portrays human emotion so effectively that those feelings carry beyond the pages.