A Chronically Ill Person’s Comparison of “A Fault in Our Stars” and “Red Band Society”

I was introduced to the book the fault in our stars and the TV series Red Band Society at about the same time. It’s been a few months, but I haven’t been able to really stop thinking about them since. Both supposedly dealt with children/young adults dealing with cancer and chronic illness. One was received by most with praise, while the other was almost universally scorned.

For some background: I am a 22 year old woman who is living with many chronic conditions including severe disautonomia and Crohn’s disease. While I personally do not have cancer, people in my immediate family did, and most importantly I know what it is like to be chronically ill. Because of this, I absolutely hated A fault in our stars.

I was given the book to read by a close friend, and it was only because of her that I was able to make myself finish it. There are many reasons for that, but the one I’m going to focus on is how it depicts the life of a sick person. Hazel is sick. She has cancer. The author clearly tried very hard to get the life and mindset of a sick person right, and I respect him for that, but it just didn’t work. He was fairly good at thinking about the obvious things- having to carry around an oxygen tank, going to the hospital, dealing with the idea of death- but there are so many other stronger issues at play in the mind of the chronically ill. The biggest one is probably balance, which is never addressed. In the book the couple go on picnic dates and hang out with friends and go on trips to Amsterdam, which could be fine, sick people are people too and people do those things. But was struck me is that while in Amsterdam the couple go sightseeing, go out for dinner, tour the Anne Frank house have sex and visit the reclusive author in a short amount of time, which is not something that a chronically ill person that has been sick for more than a few months would try. It is too much to do all at once without assuring that you will spend the next few weeks bedridden. Sure, occasionally, when hazel’s or Gus’ health declines they will cancel or postpone plans, but we never see them making themselves stop what they are doing and take a break even though they feel fine simply because they know that they should. That is not something that should be glossed over. Yes, “I feel great right now but maybe I should nap rather than do another fun thing right now” doesn’t seem like a problem up there with “oh my gosh, improbably going to die very young” but it is one of the hardest things about being permanently sick. It is a painful choice that we make over and over again and is the question that governs our actions most of the time. The guessing game of “is this a thing I can do right now, and if I do it what will it cost me” is everything. It is easy to not do things when you are bedridden- everyone has to do that- it is hard when you are having a rare good day and you have to make that choice. That was probably my biggest issue with the book. Hazel Grace lacked the basic thought process of a sick person and thus came across as another “cancer story” character as understood by healthy people.

Red Band Society, however, did a great job of representing how young people with chronic illnesses deal with life. It was highly criticized for its setting- the teens were living in the best hospital ever- and I even read reviews that were horrified at the antics these sick teenagers would get up to. They didn’t act like sick people, or at least they didn’t act the way healthy people expect sick people to act. While I can’t argue that the setting and even the premise was ridiculous (the kids were rarely hooked up to monitors of any kind, parents rarely visited and they wold frequently break out and leave the hospital, or go party on the roof) I loved it. The characters had medical conditions, yes, and those were often forefront in their minds, but they were also teenagers that acted like teenagers. They made bad choices. They developed crushes and rivalries and friendships. They held some grudges and forgave others. They had hopes and dreams and were lazy. And they were living with severe medical conditions. It was the most realistic portrayal of teenagers with illnesses that I have seen. One scene that remains vividly in my mind is where Dash, a boy with cystic fibrosis collapses after sneaking out to graffiti a nearby building. When his fairly self centered friend freaks out, he hints that he had expected the reaction. He made the choice to go out and paint the walls, knowing that it would likely trigger symptoms. I don’t know if anyone who has never had to live with a chronic illness can really understand what that moment meant or why it meant so much to see it portrayed on screen.

I suppose it doesn’t really matter though. Red band Society was cancelled after its first season while Te Fault in Our Stars was made into a movie. I guess that audiences don’t really want their sick characters acting like actual sick people rather than the way healthy people think sick people should act.

Eh. Just some thoughts.