The Fault in Our Stars is the upcoming fourth solo novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by author John Green that rose to #1 on the Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

 and Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble, Inc. is the largest book retailer in the United States, operating mainly through its Barnes & Noble Booksellers chain of bookstores headquartered at 122 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District in Manhattan in New York City. Barnes & Noble also operated the chain of small B. Dalton...

 bestseller lists in June 2011 shortly after its title was announced.

The book's title was revealed in a post on Green's Tumblr

Tumblr

Tumblr is a website and microblogging platform that allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. Users can follow other users, or choose to make their tumblelog private. The service emphasizes ease of use. The site ranks as the 10th...

 blog

Blog

A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...

 on June 28, 2011. In the post, Green stated, "The title is inspired by a famous line from Shakespeare's

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 play Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar (play)

The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, also known simply as Julius Caesar, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599. It portrays the 44 BC conspiracy against...

(Act 1, scene 2). The nobleman Cassius says to Brutus, 'The fault, dear Brutus is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.'" This was also stated on Green's YouTube

YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

 vlog.

The book shot to number 1 on the Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble bestseller lists, before the cover had even been released. Green also promised that every copy of the first printing will be hand-signed by him. He proposed that the general public vote on the color Sharpie

Sharpie (marker)

Sharpie is a manufacturer of writing instruments whose products are sold in over 20 countries. Originally a name designating a single permanent marker, the Sharpie brand has been widely expanded and can now be found on a variety of previously unrelated permanent and non-permanent pens and markers...

 he will use to sign the book. The voting resulted in him signing the books with a variety of Sharpie colors, each in proportion to the amount of votes received for that color. He has also been allowing fans to submit their book cover designs.

The book's plot centers on a girl named Hazel who is suffering from terminal cancer

Cancer

Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

and is forced by her parents to attend a support group.