One week, Hazel meets Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort), a charming teenager who lost a leg from bone cancer years earlier but has since been cancer-free. He invites Hazel to his house and she accepts, where they bond over their hobbies and agree to read each other's favorite book. Hazel recommends An Imperial Affliction, a novel about a cancer-stricken girl named Anna that parallels Hazel's experience, and Augustus gives Hazel Counter Insurgence. They keep in touch via text over the weeks that follow and grow closer. After Augustus finishes the book, he expresses frustration with its abrupt ending (it ends in the middle of a sentence). Hazel explains that the novel's mysterious author, Peter Van Houten (Willem Dafoe), retreated to Amsterdam following the novel's publication and has not been heard from since.