A teenage girl named Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley) is lying in the grass staring up at the stars. She states that she believes we're allowed to choose how to tell sad stories, and that although one can sugarcoat it and say there's nothing that can't be fixed with a Peter Gabriel song, it's not the truth.Hazel suffers from stage 4 thyroid cancer and is always seen carrying an oxygen tank with a cannula in her nose for her to breathe. At the behest of her mother Frannie (Laura Dern), father Michael (Sam Trammell), and her doctor Maria (Ana Dela Cruz), she attends a cancer support group at a church called the Literal Heart of Jesus. The person running it is a man named Patrick (Mike Birbiglia), who had testicular cancer and is now divorced and lives with his parents, but is positive because he is alive. Frannie wants Hazel to make friends, but as Hazel says, the only thing worse than biting it from cancer is having a kid that bites it from cancer.One day during her trip to the group, Hazel bumps into Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort). During the meeting, Gus stares at Hazel. Patrick first calls on Gus's friend Isaac (Nat Wolff), who had a tumor in his eye and now wears a glass eye, though he is thankful because of his "smoking hot" girlfriend Monica. When Gus is called on, he says that he has been in remission from osteosarcoma after having half of his right leg amputated (he wears a prosthetic). Patrick asks him if he has any fears, and Gus states that he fears oblivion. Hazel shoots this down by saying that eventually, everything and everyone will be gone and forgotten, and if that scares him, he should ignore it. After the meeting, Hazel waits for her mom, and Gus comes out to chat with her. They see Isaac and Monica making out and groping each other, then repeating: "Always" to one another. Gus explains to Hazel that this is their way of saying they will always love each other. He asks Hazel her name and tells her she's beautiful. He then puts a cigarette in his mouth, which upsets Hazel because it has ruined her impression of him. Gus explains that he never lights or smokes the cigarettes he puts between his teeth so as to not give the killing item any power. He invites Hazel to watch a movie.While Gus recklessly drives to his house, he asks Hazel about her cancer story. She tells him (through flashbacks) that she was diagnosed when she was 13 and went through all the required treatment, but it wasn't working. Her lungs began to fill with water and she was treated in the ICU. Then one day, the medication she was given began to work well, which was considered to be miraculous. Hazel and Gus arrive at his home and meet his parents. He brings Hazel to the basement and asks her to tell him her real story, not her cancer story. She claims to be unremarkable, but he rejects that. He gives her a copy of his favorite book based on his favorite video game: "Counterinsurgence". Hazel, in return, recommends her favorite book: "An Imperial Affliction", which is about a girl that has leukemia, but she tells Gus that it is not necessarily a cancer story.Hazel waits for Gus to call her back, and after a few days, he texts her after finishing "An Imperial Affliction". He expresses surprise that the book ends mid-sentence (the protagonist Anna apparently dies during her narration). Hazel excuses herself from dinner to speak to Gus on the telephone, but they are interrupted by Isaac wailing a song lyric in the background. Gus invites Hazel over, where she finds out that Monica broke up with Isaac before his operation when his other eye will be removed, because she cannot handle the consequences. Gus says Isaac is having a "psychotic episode", While Hazel says Isaac's response to the break up seems normal. Gus allows Isaac to take out his anger on his basketball trophies. While Isaac smashes them, Gus talks to Hazel about the ending of the book, and she tells him that she has written hundreds of letters to ask the book's author, Peter Van Houten, questions about what happened after the story, such as the fate of Anna's mother and her relationship with the "Dutch Tulip Man", and Anna's pet hamster Sisyphus.One evening during a telephone conversation, Gus tells Hazel that he tracked down Van Houten's assistant and got a response from a message he wrote to Peter Van Houten. Van Houten thanked Gus for his and Hazel's interest in the novel, and that he has no current plans to write any follow-ups to "An Imperial Affliction". Hazel is surprized that it took that one e-mail to get a response. She decides to write her own e-mail back to Van Houten to ask her questions. A few days later, Hazel gets her own response from Van Houten, who also thanks her for her interest in the story, and even invites her to visit him in Amsterdam. Overjoyed, Hazel tells her mother, and while she wants to make her daughter happy, she knows they wouldn't be able to afford it. Hazel later reads the e-mail to Gus, and they stay talking until 1:00 AM. Hazel decides it's time to hang up. "Okay," Gus responds. "Okay," Hazel says back. Gus decides that "Okay" can be their "Always".Hazel tells Gus about the invitation, and Gus suggests asking the Genies (a Make-A-Wish sort of organization) to grant her this wish. Hazel states that she already used her wish to go to Disney World. Gus is disappointed that she used her wish on a cliche. A while later, Gus shows up at Hazel's home with orange tulip flowers in a basketball shirt of Rik Smits, the Dutch basketball player, and then invites her on a picnic to a park featuring a giant skeleton playground called Funky Bones, a replica of an artwork by a Dutch artist. Gus jokes that he has brought all his romantic conquests here and that is why he is a virgin. He even illustrates this by drawing a circle in the dirt of virgins and a small circle within of 18-year-old boys with one leg. As they have their picnic, Gus tells her that he spoke to the Genies and convinced them to grant him the wish of taking Hazel to Amsterdam. She is ecstatic.Hazel wakes up in the middle of the night having trouble breathing as fluid fills her lungs. Her parents rush her to the hospital, with Gus waiting outside since he is not allowed in (family only). Hazel has the fluid drained from her lungs and she recovers. After a meeting with the doctors, they determine that she is physically unfit to travel anywhere in her condition. Hazel then has a flashback to when she was in the ICU as a child with Frannie telling her she can let go, and then sobbing to Michael that she won't be a mom anymore.Feeling dejected, Hazel does not respond to telephone calls and text messages form Gus. She sits in front of a swing in the backyard that her father built when she was a child. She calls Gus and expresses her sadness. He comes over and they sit on the swing. He tells her that her keeping her distance from him does not lessen his affection toward her. She compares herself to a grenade and that she will blow up and destroy everything in her wake. Not wanting to hurt Gus, Hazel decides they ought to remain friends.Days later, Van Houten's assistant Lidewij e-mails Hazel to extend the invitation again after learning that they will be traveling to Amsterdam in a week. Hazel calls her mother in, and she admits that she wanted to surprise her together with her father, but they are indeed going to Amsterdam. Hazel hugs Frannie and then texts Gus. He replies, "Everything is coming up Waters!" She then looks down at her lungs and tells them to keep their shit together for at least a week.Gus arrives in a limo to pick up Hazel and Frannie, declaring he wants to travel in style. On the plane, Gus becomes nervous as he's never flown on a plane before, and he becomes excited once they take off. When Hazel gives Gus a peck on the cheek, Frannie finds them adorable.On their first day in Amsterdam, Hazel and Gus ride through a canal and go to a Dutch restaurant, Oranjee. Hazel wears a nice blue dress given to her by Frannie. Frannie is impressed by how handsome Gus looks in his smoking, and Gus is stunned by how beautiful Hazel looks. At the restaurant, they are welcomed as Mr. and Mrs. Waters, served Dom Perignon for the first time and they enjoy it. They have their dinner, and Gus proudly declares his love to Hazel, which puts a big smile on her face. The waiter comes by with more champagne, and he says the dinner was all paid for by Van Houten.The next day, Hazel and Gus go to meet Van Houten. They are greeted at the door by Lidewij (Lotte Verbeek), who welcomes them inside. There is unopened fan mail all over the floor. The couple finds Van Houten (Willem Dafoe) in his pajamas, drinking scotch. They sit down so Van Houten can answer their questions, but he instead orders Lidewij to put on Swedish rap. Despite the loud rap, Hazel starts to ask her questions, such as the fate of Anna's mother and the Dutch Tulip Man, but Van Houten only responds with philosophical nonsense. Gus asks him if he is messing with them, and Van Houten makes a rude comment about Gus's cancer. He only gets worse by refusing to answer Hazel's questions and insulting her and Gus's sicknesses. Hazel and Gus storm out. Van Houten asks her why she dwells on these questions, and Hazel just tells him to go fuck himself.Lidewij, appalled by Van Houten's behavior, offers to escort Hazel and Gus to the Anne Frank House. Since there are no elevators, Hazel must walk up all the stairs and climb the ladder, which puts a strain on her breathing. They get up to the floor with a vocal recording of Anne Frank's diary. As Anne Frank's thoughts and writings are voiced about capturing beauty and being happy in difficult circumstances, Hazel and Gus share their first kiss. The onlookers, including Lidewij, applaud them. They go back to Gus's room and make love for the first time. Hazel leaves him with a drawing of the large virgin circle, and the circle of 18-year-old boys with one leg outside that big circle.On their last day in Amsterdam, Hazel and Gus have breakfast with Frannie before walking alone together. They sit on a bench and Gus tells Hazel that when she was in the ICU, he felt a pain in his hip and got a PET scan. Hazel already knows what he's going to tell her. Gus says the scan "lit up like a Christmas tree", and the cancer returned and spread through his body. Hazel puts her head on his shoulder and cries. Gus tries to lighten the mood by suggesting they make out.Hazel, Gus, and Frannie return to Indianapolis with Michael picking them up. A few days later, Hazel and Gus hang out with Isaac, who is now completely blind and tells them that Monica hasn't spoken to him since the break-up. To cheer him up, Hazel and Gus buy eggs, and they go to Monica's home and let Isaac pelt her car with eggs.Gus calls Hazel in the middle of the night to ask her to come to the gas station to help him. She drives over there to find him sitting in his car, covered in his own mucus and vomit, with an infection in his abdomen from the G-tube, wanting to by a new pack of cigarettes, because he cannot find his old pack. Hazel calls an ambulance, despite Gus's pleas not to. The ambulance arrives and takes Gus to the hospital.Gus undergoes more treatment for the cancer until the doctors decide to take him off the chemo. Hazel is now the one being refused in his hospital chamber, because she is no family member. He now requires a wheelchair to get around. Hazel takes him to the park with the Funky Bones replica for a picnic. He expresses his desire to have left an impact on the world before he dies and his need to live an extraordinary life. Hazel takes offense to it and tells him that he doesn't need to do all that because she and his parents love him and that this should be enough. He says he's sorry and they drink champagne.Gus calls Hazel another evening to invite her to the Literal Heart of Jesus for a gathering, and to bring a eulogy that he asked Hazel to write for him. She starts to leave but is stopped by her parents who are setting up dinner. Hazel argues with them that she will be gone and that they will be alone after hearing her mother say she won't be a mom anymore after Hazel dies. Frannie is surprized Hazel remembers that and explains that she now knows she was wrong and will always be Hazel's mother even if she dies. Both her parents say they will never stop loving her no matter what happens, and that Frannie is taking classes to become a social worker and help families that go through a similar process that they are going through. Hazel is happy to hear this and does not have to worry about her parents if she dies; her parents will be fulfilled even after she is gone.Hazel joins Gus and Isaac at the church for what is a "pre-funeral" that Gus wants to witness, since he wants to attend his own funeral. Isaac starts off a eulogy with a touch of humor, but says that if he ever is given "robot eyes", he would deny them because he doesn't want to see a world without Gus. Hazel goes up and starts to talk about her love story with Gus before switching to mathematics and that there are infinite numbers between 0 and 1, that there are countless infinities, and that she is thankful for their infinity. They both say: "I love you", to each other one last time.Gus dies eight days later. The Lancasters receive a telephone call in the middle of the night to hear the news. Hazel's parents walk into her room, and without a word, she knows what is wrong and begins to cry. She recalls a time when undergoing treatment and the nurse asked her to rate her pain on a scale from 1 to 10. Hazel said 9, and the nurse said she was a fighter for calling a 10 a 9. She says that she was not being brave at the time, but saving her 10 for this sort of painful occasion.A funeral is held for Gus. Hazel and her parents go, and as the preacher speaks, Hazel is surprised to see Van Houten there. Hazel is called up to speak, corrects the preacher that she is Gus's girlfriend, puts a pack of cigarettes between the flowers on his coffin and gives a new eulogy that she finds more fitting for the public at the funeral. After the funeral, Hazel decides to drive home alone, and Van Houten enters her car. There, she learns that he and Gus kept in touch prior to his death, and Gus told Van Houten that he could redeem himself by visiting Hazel and answering her questions. He reveals that Anna was based on Van Houten's 8-year-old daughter who died of leukemia. Before she furiously sends him out of her car, Van Houten gives Hazel a letter, which she crumples up and throws away. She drives away and sees him drink from his flask in the car's mirror.Hazel's dad goes to comfort her following Gus's death. Later, Isaac comes over to visit. He tells Hazel that Gus really loved her and never stopped talking about her to the point where it got annoying. He asks her if she read the letter from Van Houten, which happened to be