《无比美妙的痛苦》

    The real tragedy of cancer may be that it affects people of all ages, and children suffering from the disease are often hit hardest. Robbed of any possibility of a normal life, “cancer kids,” as author John Green’s narrator, Hazel Grace Lancaster, calls them, mark their time in days and weeks.

    Lancaster, 16, has been fighting thyroid* cancer since age 13, and only through the use of an experimental drug is she still alive.

    She carries an oxygen tank with her everywhere, and hasn’t attended traditional school* since her diagnosis*. Depressed* and lonely, she tries a support group, where she meets the handsome Augustus Waters, a 17-year-old dreamboat* who quickly turns her life into an adventure.

    Green avoids the typical will-they-or-won’t-they of most teen reads, as cancer victims don’t have the time to dawdle* with their affections*. Instead, the two become fast friends.

    The novel is well plotted, and as sad in places as one might expect a book about adolescent* cancer to be. But it’s also shining with joy. Lancaster and Waters have a zeal* for living and for each other that, cancer or not, is rare, and it’s a delight to see their plans carry out and relationship flourish* even as they both face death.

    Green tells his story with courage and tenderness*. He adds young lovers’ thoughts about the afterlife into his story, and yet it all makes sense. As Lancaster says to Waters, “Some infinities* are bigger than other infinities ... There are days, many of them, when I resent* the size of my unbound set. But Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity.”(SD-Agencies)