Contest #2 Entry: Alternative Book Cover

I recently read The Fault in Our Stars and LOVED the content. The surface? Not so much. It's very clean and minimalist and eye-catching. However it is also very plain and does not tell a potential reader what the story may really be about. 

This is a summary on TFIOS: Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 13, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs... for now. 

Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault. 

Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind.

Okay, so to the right is my alternative cover to The Fault in Our Stars. My cover is a better representation of the story in many ways...

In the novel, Augustus is a big fan of metaphorical and symbolic resonances. He often puts an unlit cigarette in his mouth as a metaphor: "You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing."

The "stars" on this cover are symbols because they are not stars, but apartment building lights. I took a photo of a few clustered apartments and flipped the photo upside down. Why did I do that? Well, it's easy to mistake the lights as stars, which is what I wanted them to appear like. Each "star" represents a person, living their "quietly desperate life", as Augustus puts it. See, Gus struggles to leave a mark in the world, he fears oblivion. He wants people to remember him for some brave, heroic deed he completed. But the truth is, he has cancer and is growing weaker by the day. With this knowledge, Hazel and Augustus become more bitter of the cancer that has robbed them of more time.

Cassius says this famous line from Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, "The fault, dear Brutus is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings." Green states that this quote was the inspiration for his title; for the fault is not in Gus and Hazel's cancer-ridden bodies, and is no one else's. No one can be blamed for the pain they are going through. And that pain is not an excuse to live life desperately. It is an inspiration to live life beautifully and gracefully, with laughter and love. Augustus finally realizes that, although he may never save the world, he can positively impact those struggling around him, namely Hazel Grace. So back to the "stars". We always get so caught up in perfecting our lives, we can't see how wonderful we already are. Cheesy, I know. It's true though. Each individual "star", each individual life is amazing and perfectly capable of doing good. You just have to know where you're needed. And whenever an obstacle comes along, you have to work with it, because you can't blame anyone for the problems that were specifically thrusted upon you. Problems designed to make you learn and grow.

If you've noticed, there are two "stars" that stand out on my cover. The symbolize Augustus and Grace.  Their "stars" are lower than everyone else's due to the fact that they are both terminally sick. Falling stars.* Their lives may end much quicker than everyone else's, but they're still capable of living life and helping others.

On to the quote I've included on top of the title: "The world is not a wish-granting factory." I chose this quote because here I had "stars" on the cover, common wish-granters. When both partners have cancer, relationships are undoubtedly difficult. Often, Augustus and Hazel would wish, wish that they weren't born with their particular lives, their cancer preventing them from living life the way they want to. After these wishes, they would remind themselves that, not everything is going to be the way you want it. The world isn't fair and that's the way it's going to stay. We can wish as much as we want, but only our own actions are going to get us somewhere.

Finally, I left some dark space for the title (which looks absolutely magnificent thanks to that font! :D) and Green's name. The dark is symbolizing the unknown, the unoccupied. Heaven or that captial-s something. Whichever one you believe in. When we die, most people believe we go up. When stars "die" they fall down.* So the dark is the unknown that Augustus and Hazel will soon be venturing into when they pass away. (Not implying anything of course ;D)

“It seemed like forever ago, like we've had this brief but still infinite forever. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.”

*Just to let you guys know, falling stars are not actually stars... I know, I'm sorry I mislead you, but I needed to explain why the two stars were "falling" into a dark space. The falling or shooting stars are actually small rocks or pieces of meteors that fall into the Earth's atmosphere, burning up and creating what looks like a tail :)