Hazel Lancaster is a girl dying of cancer, and so it makes sense when the setting of the book is mostly indoors. The novel is not set up just in Indianapolis, but in centers for the ill, her home, the homes of other ill friends, hospitals, support groups, etc. Just the setting alone gives a sad, depressed and even claustrophobic mood. Hazel doesn't help herself, as she reads the same novel, An Imperial Affliction, over and over again and obsessively, trapping herself in only one school of thought and not opening up to the possibilities of the world. Fate changes when she meets Augustus Waters, the one guy who could change her perspective on life and the only one who could give her hope again. He introduces the idea of going on an all-expense paid trip to Amsterdam (paid by Make-a-Wish Foundation) to meet the author of An Imperial Affliction. The setting in Amsterdam is, naturally, outdoors; Hazel quickly finds herself by the canals, around beautiful landscapes and out in the arresting clutches of nature. The setting changes Hazel as well, as this is the place where she finally sees her world open up for her. Setting proves to be of utmost importance in the end as it sets the mood and plays a role in widening Hazel's scope of the world.
Green himself explains his choice for Amsterdam as the dream city eloquently in an interview. He describes Amsterdam as a drowning city (the canals) the same way Hazel is a drowning girl, drowning in her own sorrows, her pain and, most obviously, her illness (i.e. fluids trapped in her lungs). Green also comments that Indianapolis and Amsterdam are polar opposites in their connotations. Indianapolis connotes as a city of urbanization, construction and a linear fashion of work. Amsterdam is romanticized as the city of freedom and love. Anne Frank is the final reason Green chose Amsterdam; Anne Frank is a young German Jewish girl who died as a result of the Holocaust. Anne Frank is an allusion to Hazel, as both were destined to die at a tragically young age (though Hazel isn't seen within the novel actually dying, it can be assumed that she will die soon after the novel ends and how soon, well no one knows for sure! At the same time everyone will die, so there is that fact to consider).
Green himself explains his choice for Amsterdam as the dream city eloquently in an interview. He describes Amsterdam as a drowning city (the canals) the same way Hazel is a drowning girl, drowning in her own sorrows, her pain and, most obviously, her illness (i.e. fluids trapped in her lungs). Green also comments that Indianapolis and Amsterdam are polar opposites in their connotations. Indianapolis connotes as a city of urbanization, construction and a linear fashion of work. Amsterdam is romanticized as the city of freedom and love. Anne Frank is the final reason Green chose Amsterdam; Anne Frank is a young German Jewish girl who died as a result of the Holocaust. Anne Frank is an allusion to Hazel, as both were destined to die at a tragically young age (though Hazel isn't seen within the novel actually dying, it can be assumed that she will die soon after the novel ends and how soon, well no one knows for sure! At the same time everyone will die, so there is that fact to consider).