Fracturing walls, not identities: The power of John Green's fully human representations of disability in The Fault in Our Stars

In my paper, I argue that young-adult author John Green recognizes the problematic ways conventional literary representations of people with disabilities contribute to the dehumanization of people with impairments. Furthermore, I suggest that Green's vibrant characters in The Fault in Our Stars and the connection readers have formed with them illuminate the power that realistic and, therefore, necessarily complex representations of characters with disabilities hold in transforming how people approach others with impairments, and, ultimately, how people with disabilities construct their own identities.