Consider other young adult novels that explore loss and teenage relationships, including John Green's debut novel, Looking for Alaska. Other relevant young adult novels include Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews, Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell, Maybe One Day by Melissa Kantor, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.
Also consider the following works, which informed the writing of The Fault in Our Stars: Siddartha Mukherjee's The Emperor of All Maladies, a history of cancer; T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"; David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest and Peter DeVries' The Blood of the Lamb, which both inspired An Imperial Affliction, the...