Life and Death: “The Fault in Our Stars” Against “Me Before You”

The two novels, The Fault in Our Stars and Me Before You are very similar. Each book takes the time to tell a love story of star-crossed lovers. John Green and Jojo Moyes both are successful at telling these stories without dwelling on the inevitably bad outcome. They portray the happiness being remembered instead of the pain and sadness. But ultimately each questions what it means to live a meaningful life, asking, “what makes our lives matter?” The two books have a lot to say to each other on this question and each gives a very different answer. The two books disagree in many ways from each other on what it means to be alive, Green makes the argument that what makes life important is the people that are important to you, Moyes says that it is about leading an important and exciting life, and the female protagonists each take on very different roles in trying to help their partners.

The Fault in Our Stars uses the relationship between Gus and Hazel to make the argument that a meaningful life is found when people love deeply and without exception. “‘It’s really mean of you to say that the only lives that matter are the ones that are lived for something or die for something.’” (Green 169) Hazel lives a simple life, and it is one she is happy with. She does not aspire to be widely loved, in fact she believes that this is a useless pursuit. So she challenges Augustus’ belief that his life will only matter if he is widely remembered. Here she points out that it is a mean thing to say to her that her life does not matter because she does not have that aspiration. Instead of living in a way that everyone knows you, she sees the real value in life is in adding value to the lives you do touch. “People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply and not widely. But it’s not sad…It’s triumphant. It’s heroic.” (Green 312) In the end Augustus has not only made his peace with the fact that he was not loved widely, but openly admires how Hazel strives to love deeply and how she is loved deeply in return. He calls it a triumph, an act of heroism. Mentioning how, overall people now aspire for that wide love, we want to have our names written into history, when what really matters – according to Hazel Grace – is being loved by your friends and family. All of this is in direct disagreement with Me Before You when Will tells Louisa, “‘It’s not enough for me. This – my world – even with you in it. And believe me, Clark, my whole life has changed for the better since you came. But it’s not enough for me. It’s not the life I want.’” (Moyes 324) For Will, being loved deeply will not satisfy him. For him it is about living life that is full of adventure and excitement. He wants a life where he jumps out of bed every morning, tries a new thing every weekend. So when he was paralyzed his life lost its meaning, and even Louisa’s love is not enough. It is not enough for him to have these meaningful relationships, if the rest of his life is unfulfilling to him.

Me Before You argues that life is found in action, not emotion. Will sees a lack of purpose in life because he lacks the physical ability to take action. Louisa’s life lacks excitement but she is content. Will pushes that, he challenges her to challenge herself. “‘Not ‘perhaps.’ You’ve got to get away from here, Clark. Promise me you won’t spend the rest of your life stuck in this bloody parody of a place mat…You only get one life. It’s actually your duty to live it as fully as possible.’” (Moyes 194) Louisa has a similar happiness with her life that Hazel Grace has. She loves her family deeply, and works hard for them. The biggest difference though is that Louisa actually does want to get out, she wants to travel but she lacks that courage – or she at least appears to. Will tells her that she has a responsibility to live her life fully, and to him this is not about finding love and creating a family, but about going out and trying new things, exploring the world. “It always does feel strange to be knocked out of your comfort zone. But I hope you feel a bit exhilarated too…there is a hunger in you, Clark. A fearlessness…live boldly. Push yourself. Don’t settle.” (Moyes 368) Will describes challenging yourself as a form of adrenaline, it gives a rush and satisfies a natural desire that everyone has to “live life fully” as Will would stay. This kind of implies that a person cannot be fully satisfied with a life at homed, that a life even with the deep love a family provides, cannot really make someone happy. Hazel, on the other hand, would disagree with this, “‘There will come a time…when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything…There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be a time after.’” (Green 12-13) Hazel believes that a life like the one Will describes is ultimately unfulfilling and will be forgotten. If no one is left to remember the big things that a person does, then they will not matter. A desire to do big things will never really satisfy a person because in the end those big things will not be remembered.

The biggest difference in these two books are the female leads. Gus and Will by the end both basically want the same thing, to be an autonomous human. Augustus saying at the end, “‘I wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes…I lost my pack. Or they took it away from me. I don’t know. They said they’d get me another one, but I wanted…to do it myself. Do one little thing myself.’” (Green 244) Will feels a similar frustration saying, “‘You decided what you thought you’d like me to do, and you went ahead and did it. You did what everyone else does. You decided for me.’” (Moyes 152) These two characters are in many ways the same person in different situations, the biggest difference that affects how they handle their lives is the women in them. Hazel does not give in to Augustus, and does not let him wallow in his pain. She is tough with him, and pushes him to change the way he thinks about his life, and try and be grateful for what he has instead feel sad about what he does not. She tells him, “‘I just want to be enough for you, but I never can be. This can never be enough for you. But this is all you get. You get me, and your family, and this world. This is your life. I’m sorry if it sucks.’” (Green 241) Augustus has numbered days, and he has no say in the matter, so Hazel picks him and – a little forcefully – gets him to look on the bright side of things. She tells him that what he has will only suck as much as he lets it. Hazel is much more forceful with her convictions and expectations than Louisa is. She looks at life as, this is what I have been given and I will not ask for more or less. By comparison, when it comes down to convincing Will to not commit suicide, the best she has is asking him not to, “I had begun to cry. ‘Please, Will. Please don’t say this. Just give me a chance. Give us a chance.’” (Moyes 326) Louisa does not have it in her to do what Hazel does and just tell her partner to get the hell over it. Instead, the way she is speaking is almost begging him not to continue. There are, of course, a multitude of differences in the two situations, but Hazel would not tolerate just giving up. She would sit down and lecture the poor boy until he was too scared to commit suicide. She would remind him of everything left to be grateful of, and put up a fight the whole way.

Ultimately these two books talk about what makes a life matter. A question people have asked since we became self-aware. The books take two very different stances, one argues that it is the people in our lives, the other that it is in how we live our lives. Both are important but it is up to each individual to decide what is most important to them.

Works Cited

Green, John. The Fault in Our Stars. London: Penguin, 2014. Print.

Moyes, Jojo. Me before You. New York, NY: Pamela Dorman /Viking, 2012. Print.

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