I happened to be on a bit of a John Green binge when his newest novel, A Fault in Our Stars, was released. It started with An Abundance of Katherines, and before I knew it, I was reading every book he wrote. But in my mind, it’s A Fault in Our Stars that sits at the top of the John Green stack. I loved the novel immediately, and have found myself giving it as gifts to teen and adult readers alike. When the movie of The Fault in Our Stars was announced, I was very excited. We’re living in a good time for YA movie adaptations, especially coming of age stories.

Maybe it’s my love for the book that holds me back from gushing over the movie, or maybe it’s just that book does a better job of telling the story than the movie. Don’t get me wrong; the movie is very faithful to the book. Similar to watching an episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones, I feel like I’m watching the pages of the novel unfold on the screen. Unfortunately, unlike HBO’s Game of Thrones, the movie version of The Fault in Our Stars doesn’t grip me the same way. But I’m not saying it’s a bad movie. Ansel Elgort captures Gus’s effortless charm perfectly, and I loved Nat Wolff as Gus’s blind friend, Isaac.

There is one area that the movie improved on over the book, and that’s Mike Birbiglia’s character, Patrick, coiner of the phrase, “the literal heart of Christ.” He’s an amusing character in the novel, but Birbiglia gives him a life that he didn’t have on the page. I just found out that Birbiglia wrote Patrick’s song for the movie, making me like his performance even more than I already did.

Coming out of the movie, I thought it was good, but that if someone was deciding between seeing the movie and reading the book, I’d definitely suggest reading the novel. The movie is faithful, but the book is divine.

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