Release date: March 18, 2025

Genre: Non-fiction / history

pages: 208

John Green is one of my favorite writers regardless of what he is writing. Angsty teenagers – I’m in. Reviews on diet dr. pepsi or sycamore trees – I’m running to the bookstore. And now Tuberculosis? I’m sat. There isn’t anything Mr.Green can write and publish that I won’t read and love. In other words this review might be a bit biased.

So I go out and buy the book the day of the release, and I immediately sit down to read, and what should come as no surprise is that it’s about tuberculosis. The history of, the history adjacent to and human stories, specifically one – Henry. Green of course has his own way of spinning things and making it interesting enough, but it’s not really interesting enough to keep my focus on finishing this fun fact book on tuberculosis in one sitting. It’s fully possible since the book is only 208 pages long, the font is big and the spacing looks double. But tuberculosis is a slow death, and reading it became a slow process for me. 

It took me about a month and a half, but after finishing I am truly astounded. Everything IS tuberculosis! He was right! Clothes, pasteurized milk, wooden chairs and street cleaning, just to name a few. 

You also feel like you get to know Green better as a person. He shares his OCD and personal stories and we see how he puts much of himself in his fictional characters. (Particularly Aza from Turtles all the way down – they feel like the same person.) This might be especially those fans who are mostly book fans and not part of the Nerdfighter crew the Green brothers have cultivated, they probably already know him pretty well.

Allow me to connect myself to Tuberculosis – when I was living in the Philippines in 2003-2005 (when I was first introduced to John Greens books), TB was talked about a lot and it seemed pretty common. So much so that when I moved to Australia, they required a TB screening before issuing me a visa. They found spots on my lungs and when I told my family I found out 2 of my cousins had TB. So the topic is interesting to me personally. I just don’t know why I went through this book in snail speed. 

People do not primarily exist to be plugged into cost-benefit analyses. We are here to love and be loved. To understand and be understood.

John Green, Everything is Tuberculosis

Maybe it’s because after moving back to Norway in 2012 – I haven’t heard TB mentioned even once. It’s a non-issue. And just like Green says – disease is where the medicines are not and the medicines are where the disease is not. It feels almost shameful now, to have this disease to close to me and my familiy, and forgetting all about it until now. I ended up asking my doctor in Norway for a follow up screening and they found nothing, so I don’t know; Maybe it was nothing, or maybe I’m one of the many lucky ones who just gets better on their own.

The thing about Green is that he gets under your skin even though you think he doesn’t. Even though I initially though it was a little boring. After finishing it, I find myself talking about it and referencing it. It is constantly on my mind. This book will stay with me a long time. And I just saw someone on TikTok, challenge Green to find a Tuberculosis connection to the pope dying. He did of course, and asked for a greater challenge, and I can’t wait to see what more connections he will find. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐