Point of View

The novel is written in the third-person with a limited narrator who alternately follows Hazel and Jasper’s perspectives, although the majority of chapters are focused on Hazel’s thoughts and experiences. These two perspectives vary widely in tone and pacing, as Hazel and Jasper are extremely different characters living through what, until the novel’s end, seem like unrelated circumstances. The protagonist’s internal thoughts and reflections on their surroundings take a particularly large role in the narration, frequently breaking into the narrative flow as complete non-sequiturs. Often when Hazel is speaking to another person or engaged in an important task, she begins thinking about something completely unrelated, and the narration follows this as it is much more closely tied to her internal monologue than the plot. In this way, the third-person is infused with elements of a first-person stream-of-consciousness style that gives the...