Hazel attends cancer support group and meets Augustus Waters for the first time.

Augustus invites Hazel to his house to watch a movie, and she shares her obsession with An Imperial Affliction.

Augustus contacts Peter Van Houten through his assistant Lidewij and shares the author's email address with Hazel.

Augustus surprises Hazel at a museum picnic by revealing he has used his Genie wish to fund a trip to Amsterdam.

Hazel reads about Augustus's deceased ex-girlfriend Caroline Mathers online, deepening her fear of causing pain to others.

Hazel's lungs fill with fluid and she is rushed to the ICU.

Hazel's doctors approve the rescheduled Amsterdam trip despite risks posed by her ongoing treatment.

Hazel and Augustus share a romantic candlelit dinner at the upscale Amsterdam restaurant Oranjee.

Hazel and Augustus visit Peter Van Houten, who is drunk, contemptuous, and refuses to answer questions about his novel.

Hazel struggles up the steep stairs of the Anne Frank House and kisses Augustus for the first time at the top.

Augustus reveals to Hazel that his cancer has returned and spread to his chest, hips, and liver.

Augustus's condition worsens severely, leaving him confined to a wheelchair and fed through a tube.

Augustus drives to a gas station alone in the middle of the night and Hazel calls an ambulance when she finds him in crisis.

Augustus dies in the ICU.

Hazel receives the scanned pages of Augustus's final written words, in which he calls her the true heroine of their story.

Hazel Lancaster and Augustus Waters meet at a cancer support group and quickly form an intense connection over their shared intelligence and dark wit. Augustus arranges a trip to Amsterdam using his Genie Foundation wish so Hazel can meet her favorite author, Peter Van Houten, but the encounter proves crushingly disappointing. During the trip the pair fall fully in love, sharing a romantic dinner and a first kiss at the top of the Anne Frank House. The joy of Amsterdam is shattered when Augustus reveals his cancer has returned and spread throughout his body. Back home, Hazel watches helplessly as the disease strips Augustus of his mobility, dignity, and spirit until he dies in the ICU. Hazel ultimately finds that the grief of loving and losing Augustus was worth every moment they shared.

The headline romance and tragedy of Hazel and Augustus.

Augustus explains that his unlit cigarette is a metaphor for facing death without giving it power to harm him.

Isaac's girlfriend Monica ends their relationship before surgery to remove his remaining eye.

Augustus encourages a heartbroken Isaac to smash old basketball trophies to express his rage and grief.

Hazel visits Isaac in the hospital after the operation that leaves him completely blind.

Van Houten responds to Hazel's email, refusing to explain his novel's ending but inviting her to Amsterdam to discuss it in person.

Hazel and her mother arrive to pick up Augustus for Amsterdam and overhear him arguing loudly with his parents.

Augustus tells Hazel he is in love with her for the first time during the flight to the Netherlands.

Lidewij quits her job on the spot and offers to show the city to Hazel and Augustus after Van Houten's cruel behavior.

Augustus, Isaac, and Hazel drive to Monica's house and throw eggs at her car in retaliation for abandoning Isaac.

Augustus returns home from a hospitalization heavily medicated and described as irrevocably robbed of his ambitions.

Hazel delivers a sentimental, cliché-filled eulogy at Augustus's official funeral to comfort his grieving parents.

Hazel removes her oxygen tank and sneaks a pack of cigarettes into Augustus's coffin before whispering a private goodbye.

Hazel refuses to hear Van Houten's long-awaited explanation of An Imperial Affliction's ending and kicks him out of her car.

Van Houten reveals that his daughter died of leukemia at age eight and directly inspired his only novel.

Hazel's mother reveals she has been secretly earning a master's degree in social work to counsel cancer families.

While the central romance drives the novel, a web of secondary relationships and events adds depth and dimension to the story. Isaac's heartbreak when Monica abandons him before his blinding surgery shows how illness complicates ordinary teenage experiences, and Augustus's bold response — encouraging Isaac to smash trophies and later organizing an egg-throwing revenge mission — reveals his action-oriented personality. The disastrous meeting with Van Houten and Lidewij's immediate resignation expose the painful gap between the comfort of literature and the cruelty of real people. As Augustus deteriorates, small moments like his father crediting Hazel for preserving his son's humor show the quiet impact she has on those around her. The novel's final chapters bring bittersweet closure through Hazel's unconventional eulogy, her private goodbye at the coffin, and the revelation that her mother has been quietly building a purposeful future beyond caregiving.

The supporting moments and relationships that shape the story.

Hazel tells her parents she is a grenade who will cause unavoidable pain to everyone who loves her.

Hazel texts Augustus telling him they cannot pursue a relationship because she refuses to hurt him when she dies.

Hazel refuses to allow Augustus to visit her during her ICU stay, not wanting him to see her suffering.

Hazel and Augustus sell her childhood swing set on Craigslist, replacing depressive nostalgia with a decisive act.

Hazel wakes to a surprise email from Lidewij confirming the Amsterdam trip has been rescheduled with the doctors' approval.

Hazel recites lines from T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock to Augustus during the flight to Amsterdam.

Walking through Amsterdam at night, Augustus reveals he chose hopeful optimism after watching Caroline Mathers deteriorate and die.

Hazel and Augustus have sex for the first time at their Amsterdam hotel.

Hazel realizes she has fallen in love with her own grenade and that she cannot and does not want to unlove Augustus.

Hazel finds Augustus helpless and humiliated at home, a stark marker of how severely his condition has deteriorated.

Hazel lashes out at Augustus for mourning the grand legacy he will never leave, insisting their life together must be enough.

Hazel storms out after arguing with her parents, who say she is spending too much time with the dying Augustus.

Peter Van Houten appears uninvited at Augustus's funeral and whispers his contempt for the minister's sentimental sermon.

Hazel attends Support Group searching for Augustus's missing manuscript pages and admits honestly that she wants to die.

Hazel and her parents visit Augustus's grave, where Hazel plants a French flag and observes the world without casting her own mortality over it.

Beneath the main plot lie the turning points and revelations that define Hazel's inner transformation. Early in the story, her declaration that she is a grenade and her refusal to pursue Augustus reveal the depth of her self-imposed isolation. The Amsterdam trip becomes a crucible of change: a romantic walk through the city at night, a first kiss hard-won at the top of a staircase, and the devastating realization that she too has fallen in love with someone terminally ill. Back home, Hazel witnesses Augustus's most humiliating moments of decline and confronts her own helplessness directly, including a rare outburst of frustration aimed at him. After his death, small moments — a fight with her parents, an honest admission at Support Group, and a quiet visit to his grave — show her gradually learning to carry grief openly. By the novel's end, Hazel has transformed from someone who feared causing pain into someone who can observe the world with wonder and accept the cost of having truly loved.