Seventeen-year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster reluctantly attends a cancer patients' support group at her mother’s behest. Because of her cancer, she uses a portable oxygen tank to breathe properly. In one of the meetings she catches the eye of a teenage boy, and through the course of the meeting she learns the boy’s name is Augustus Waters. He's there to support their mutual friend, Isaac. Isaac had a tumor in one eye that he had removed, and now he has to have his other eye taken out as well. After the meeting ends, Augustus approaches Hazel and tells her she looks like Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta. He invites Hazel to his house to watch the movie, and while hanging out, the two discuss their experiences with cancer. Hazel reveals she has thyroid cancer that has spread to her lungs. Augustus had osteosarcoma, but he is now cancer free after having his leg amputated. Before Augustus takes Hazel home, they agree to read one another’s favorite novels. Augustus gives Hazel The Price of Dawn, and Hazel recommends An Imperial Affliction.Hazel explains the magnificence of An Imperial Affliction: It is a novel about a girl named Anna who has cancer, and it's the only account she's read of living with cancer that matches her experience. She describes how the novel maddeningly ends midsentence, denying the reader closure about the fate of the novel’s characters. She speculates about the novel’s mysterious author, Peter Van Houten, who fled to Amsterdam after the novel was published and hasn’t been heard from since.A week after Hazel and Augustus discuss the literary meaning of An Imperial Affliction, Augustus miraculously reveals he tracked down Van Houten's assistant, Lidewij, and through her he's managed to start an email correspondence with the reclusive author. He shares Van Houten's letter with Hazel, and she devises a list of questions to send Van Houten, hoping to clear up the novel’s ambiguous conclusion.
