So yeah, there may be a lot of side effects to dying. But I’d like to think that dying is a side effect of living.

Seriously. Spoilers.

I didn’t cry. Not technically. My throat caught once, but I’d like to think that was some food I was eating. I did, however, feel a rush of anger at the end of chapter 14; “I never took another picture of him.” That was the point of no return, where you know that Gus is definitely going to die, that there won’t be some miraculous recovery. I wanted to shout, but then I remembered that it is a book and I sank into a sort of revelry in the ability of the author to bring me to such a condition.

And speaking of that, I was amazed to find myself laughing even after Gus died, like when Van Houten pops up in the backseat, or when Isaac tries to hump the wall made of pixels, or at Hazel’s mom’s enthusiasm for Bastille Day. (Tangent: For some reason I’ve always been able to remember the date of Bastille Day. The night the last Harry Potter movie came out happened to be a July 14. All my friends were excited about it. I posted everyone a wish for a happy Bastille Day.)

And in the end, with Gus’ notes to Van Houten, I felt a very powerful message.

You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.

I do, Augustus.

I do.

The incredibly hopeful and wonderful thing here is that neither Augustus nor Hazel regret falling in love. They made their choices. And now at least one lives with them. That’s not to say that it hurt Hazel when Gus died. Because it did. It hurt a ten. Still, I don’t think Hazel regrets loving Gus. And when I go back to the earlier parts of the book (being the time-traveling reader I am), their conversations don’t feel tainted by Gus’ future. It was simply a joy for these two to be together for when they were.

Those are my thoughts for now. I’ve certainly got more.