These links show the original reading lists. Inclusion is not a guarantee of suitability for your child.
John Green - Author
A witty, emotionally serious story about teenagers confronting illness, love and mortality. It combines an accessible prose style with grief, brief sex, some swearing, drinking and reflections on literature, fate and what makes a life matter.
Hazel and Augustus form a romantic relationship while living with cancer and awareness of mortality.Exploratory / explanatoryExploratory / explanatory: the book explains or explores the subject without an established evaluative position.Exploratory / explanatory: the book explains or explores the subject without an established evaluative position.
How the book presents it: The relationship is presented as a way of exploring whether love remains meaningful when loss is possible, rather than as a simple escape from illness.
Talk about: If love may bring pain as well as joy, what reasons do the characters give for choosing it?
Stories, memory and legacy
The novel refers to Shakespeare and includes a fictional book that prompts reflection on stories about dying people and what they owe their subjects.Exploratory / explanatoryExploratory / explanatory: the book explains or explores the subject without an established evaluative position.Exploratory / explanatory: the book explains or explores the subject without an established evaluative position.
How the book presents it: Literature functions as a route into questions about fate, oblivion, memory and whether a life needs lasting recognition to have value.
Talk about: Does the book challenge or support the idea that being remembered gives a life its meaning?
Living with serious illness
The characters’ lives are shaped by serious illness, relationships, treatment and questions of identity.Exploratory / explanatoryExploratory / explanatory: the book explains or explores the subject without an established evaluative position.Exploratory / explanatory: the book explains or explores the subject without an established evaluative position.
How the book presents it: The illness storyline is connected to relationships and identity, while the characters remain intellectually complex rather than being reduced to diagnoses.
Talk about: How do the characters preserve humour, agency or individuality within medical treatment and physical change?
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Why It May Be Worth Reading
Its strongest offering is a distinctive, sardonic narrative voice that treats young people’s ideas seriously. It can open thoughtful discussion about loving someone despite possible loss, and about whether stories represent suffering responsibly.
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What Deserves Attention
Pay particular attention to cancer’s physical deterioration, near-death experiences, vomiting, seizures and loss of bodily abilities. The novel also includes a significant death, brief non-graphic sex, mature language and alcohol use.
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A Conversation Worth Having
How does the story balance humour and romance with fear, grief and physical suffering? If a character knows loss may come, what does the novel suggest makes love worthwhile—and whose perspective receives the most attention?
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Reading Approach
Consider reading alongside the young person rather than presenting it as a lesson about illness. Pause after medically intense scenes or major losses, check how the reader is finding the balance of humour and sadness, and return to the Shakespeare reference when discussing fate.
Confidence & Basis
Theme indicators describe how the book presents a topic; they are not a verdict on the whole book or your family's values. Confidence reflects how much book-specific material was checked. Only part of the book information was available, so some details remain unconfirmed.
What remains unconfirmed
Love alongside mortality: The extracts establish the theme but do not provide the complete ending or every character’s resolution.
Stories, memory and legacy: Some details of this treatment remain unclear.
Living with serious illness: The extracts list several symptoms and relationships but do not describe the full range of perspectives on illness.
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