Holliday Park

Holliday Park is a park in Indianapolis, Indiana, that lies between Hazel Grace Lancaster's house and Augustus Waters's house, a geographic inconvenience that nonetheless becomes a landscape of memory, childhood, and the ache of sentimentality. For Hazel, the park is inseparable from the White River that runs through it and the ritual she shared with her father: he would throw her into the air above the water, and she would reach out her arms as she flew, and he would reach out his, and for a moment they would both see that their arms were not going to touch and no one was going to catch her, and it would scare them both in the best possible way before she hit the water and the current brought her back to him as she said again, "Daddy, again." This memory surfaces when Hazel is in her backyard, looking at her own childhood swing set, which she describes as "waterlogged and pathetic," and which Augustus later calls "one sad goddamned swing set." The park thus becomes a touchstone for the fragility of life and the impossibility of returning to a time before illness defined her existence.

The Park as a Site of Childhood and Loss

Holliday Park is defined not by its physical features but by the emotional weight Hazel assigns to it. She recalls wading in the White River with her father when she was a little kid, and the specific, terrifying joy of being thrown into the air, the moment of suspended flight when she and her father both realized their arms would not touch and no one would catch her. This memory is not a sentimental one of a healthy father pushing a healthy child; it is a memory of a shared, thrilling fear that ends in the water's embrace. The park is also the place where, after Augustus's death, Hazel's mother schedules a picnic on Bastille Day, and the family sits in the shadow of the Ruins, a sculptural re-creation of Roman ruins that have become actual ruins by accident. There, Hazel watches the kids on the playground, the little kids figuring out how to be alive, and she thinks about the universe wanting to be noticed, and how she has to notice it as best she can. The park, in this final scene, becomes a place where she can practice paying attention to the world, a world that is not built for humans but that humans were built for.

The Park and the Swing Set

The swing set in Hazel's backyard, which she gives away with Augustus's help, is a direct echo of the Holliday Park memory. When she calls Augustus after her ICU stay, she is sitting in the grass, looking at the swing set, and she tells him, "there is this old swing set out here that my dad made for me when I was a kid." Augustus immediately responds, "I must see this old swing set of tears immediately." He comes over, sits down next to her, and puts an arm around her shoulder, saying, "I see your point. That is one sad goddamned swing set." The swing set, like the memory of the White River, represents a lost childhood and the impossibility of going back. The ad they write together for the swing set includes the line, "No matter how hard you kick, no matter how high you get, you can't go all the way around," a sentiment that echoes the lesson of the river: there is always a return, but it is never the same.

The Park as a Place of Final Reflection

On Bastille Day, after Augustus's death, Hazel's parents take her to Holliday Park. They sit by the Ruins, and Hazel watches the kids on the playground, the little kids figuring out how to be alive, how to navigate a world that was not built for them by navigating a playground that was. She thinks about the light on the ruined Ruins, her mother zigzagging mustard across her turkey sandwich, her father patting his handheld in his pocket, a guy throwing a Frisbee that his dog kept running under and catching. She asks herself, "Who am I to say that these things might not be forever?" and concludes, "All I know of heaven and all I know of death is in this park: an elegant universe in ceaseless motion, teeming with ruined ruins and screaming children." The park, which began as a site of childhood memory and the fear of being uncatchable, ends as a site of acceptance and attention, a place where Hazel can practice noticing the world, even as she knows she will not be in it forever.