The Best Books by John Green

Esther was 16 when she died from complications of thyroid cancer in 2010. By that time, she’d become a fixture among the Nerdfighters, a community dedicated to intellectualism and creativity, created by author John Green and his brother, composer Hank Green, via their popular YouTube channel, the Vlogbrothers. John Green dedicated The Fault in Our Stars (2012) to Esther, and in his introduction to this memoir, he notes that while he’s proud of ‘Fault’s’ success, “the one person I most want to read it never will.” Featuring essays from friends, family, and doctors and curated by her parents, this collection—part autobiography, portfolio of her fiction and drawings, and photo album—is a touching eulogy, and it fulfills her dream to be an author.

An intimate portrait of a vibrant, deeply engaged teen, this title reveals the power of the internet as a mode for connection, which comes through with each reproduced chat session and blog post. As the Nerdfighters say, rest in awesome, Esther. One of the most heart-felt and best books by John Green.

In The Fault in Our Stars, John Green has created a soulful novel that tackles big subjects – life, death, love – with the perfect blend of levity and heart-swelling emotion. Hazel is sixteen, with terminal cancer, when she meets Augustus at her kids-with-cancer support group. The two are kindred spirits, sharing an irreverent sense of humor and immense charm, and watching them fall in love even as they face universal questions of the human condition – How will I be remembered? Does my life, and will my death, have meaning? – has a raw honesty that is deeply moving. Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning-author John Green’s most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love. Hazel Grace is a latter-day Holden Caulfield (The Catcher in the Rye) and it’s no coincidence this is first on our list of the best books for Teens and Young Adults. Also one of the best books by John Green… or anyone else for that matter!

Which brings us to another John Green novel, Looking for Alaska. Sixteen-year-old Miles Halter’s adolescence has been one long nonevent – no challenge, no girls, no mischief, and no real friends. Seeking what Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps,” he leaves Florida for a boarding school in Birmingham, AL. His roommate, Chip, is a dirt-poor genius scholarship student with a Napoleon complex who lives to one-up the school’s rich preppies. Chip’s best friend is Alaska Young, with whom Miles and every other male in her orbit falls instantly in love. She is literate, articulate, and beautiful, and she exhibits a reckless combination of adventurous and self-destructive behavior. She and Chip teach Miles to drink, smoke, and plot elaborate pranks. Definitely one of the best books by John Green.

Weeks before graduating from their Orlando-area high school, Quentin Jacobsen’s childhood best friend, Margo, reappears in his life, specifically at his window, commanding him to take her on an all-night, score-settling spree. Quentin has loved Margo from not so afar (she lives next door), years after she ditched him for a cooler crowd. Just as suddenly, she disappears again, and the plot’s considerable tension derives from Quentin’s mission to find out if she’s run away or committed suicide. Margo’s parents, inured to her extreme behavior, wash their hands, but Quentin thinks she’s left him a clue in a highlighted volume of Leaves of Grass. Always an enigma, Margo has now become a mystery. We’d read all the other John Green books on this list before Paper Towns – not quite one the best books by John Green. Perhaps because John Green sets such a high standard, we’ve marked him hard!

What a plot! One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, Will Grayson crosses paths with . . . Will Grayson. Two teens with the same name, running in two very different circles, suddenly find their lives going in new and unexpected directions – and culminating in epic turns-of-heart and the most fabulous musical ever to grace the high school stage. Told in alternating voices from these two Young Adult fiction superstars (John Green and David Levithan), this collaborative novel features a double helping of the heart and humor that have won them both gazillions of fans. One of the best books by John Green AND David Levithan!

Yet another sharp, intelligent story from John Green – this one full of mathematical problems, historical references, word puzzles, and footnotes. Colin Singleton believes he is a washed-up child prodigy. A graduating valedictorian with a talent for creating anagrams, he fears he’ll never do anything to classify him as a genius. To make matters worse, he has just been dumped by his most recent girlfriend (all of them have been named Katherine), and he’s inconsolable. What better time for a road trip! He and his buddy Hassan load up the gray Olds (Satan’s Hearse) and leave Chicago. They make it as far as Gutshot, Tennessee, where they stop to tour the gravesite of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and meet a girl who isn’t named Katherine. It’s this girl, Lindsey, who helps Colin work on a mathematical theorem to predict the duration of romantic relationships. The laugh-out-loud humor ranges from delightfully sophomoric to subtly intellectual. The idea behind the book is that everyone’s story counts, and what Colin’s contributes to the world, no matter how small it may seem to him, will, indeed, matter. Yes indeed, one of the best books by John Green for sure.

Read #1 New York Times-bestselling author John Green from the beginning with four critically acclaimed, award-winning modern classics, including Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, and The Fault in Our Stars.

This deluxe library includes beautifully updated hardcovers of John Green’s award-winning backlist in a stunning case featuring key icons and popular quotes from all four books. The perfect way to own the best books by John Green.

In this charming trio of interconnected novellas, a massive snowstorm on Christmas Eve acts as a catalyst for romance in the lives of three teens. In Maureen Johnson’s tale, Jubilee Express, after Jubilee’s train becomes snowbound, she seeks shelter at a nearby Waffle House, along with a squad of hyper cheerleaders. In John Green’s story, A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle, a guy summons three friends to the Waffle House, where the combination of cheerleaders and cheesy waffles prompts big realizations. Finally, in Lauren Myracle’s entry, Patron Saint of Pigs, self-absorbed Addie atones for cheating on her boyfriend (who was stuck on Jubilee’s train) by proving she can be an angel for someone else, even if that someone is only a pet pig. Johnson’s playfulness, Green’s banter, and Myracle’s sincerity mesh well here, resulting in a collection that is imbued with optimism and warmth.