Published : 28 Sep 2026, 05:07 PM
Updated : 28 Sep 2026, 05:07 PM
John Green is returning to fiction after a nine-year break.
“The Fault in Our Stars” author is set to publish “Hollywood Ending”, his first novel since 2017 and his first written for adults, The Independent reports.
The story follows two young actors -- a former child star trying to establish herself as a serious performer and an unknown on the verge of a breakthrough -- as they shoot an arthouse film about Andy Warhol and confront the pressures of fame.
Green, 49, has personal experience of sudden celebrity. His 2012 novel “The Fault in Our Stars” made him one of the rare novelists to achieve genuine pop-culture celebrity, with fans showing up uninvited at his home and his work being tweeted about by Kim Kardashian.
The attention proved too much for a self-described introvert with anxiety and OCD.
His solution was to step back -- spending the intervening years writing about Dr Pepper, tuberculosis, and global health equity, racking up two consecutive number-one nonfiction debuts along the way.
The new novel wrestles with social media's grip on young people, a subject Green has a front-row seat to, according to The Independent.
Green left Twitter, now X, in 2022 despite having around five million followers, and remains wary of what he calls the exchange of private selves for public attention, mediated by a handful of super-rich men.
Meanwhile, Green remains the author of the most banned book in the United States.
“Looking for Alaska”, his 2005 debut, has been pulled from school libraries across Florida, Iowa, and even his own former high school in Indiana -- largely, he says, by people who have never read it.
As for why he returned to fiction at all, Green says he eventually found his answer. He wanted to write about surviving the unsurvivable, and about the necessity of not being alone.
He just had to figure out how to say it without sounding like he was puking.
The new novel wrestles with social media's grip on young people, a subject Green has a front-row seat to, according to The Independent.
Green left Twitter, now X, in 2022 despite having around five million followers, and remains wary of what he calls the exchange of private selves for public attention, mediated by a handful of super-rich men.
Meanwhile, Green remains the author of the most banned book in the United States.
“Looking for Alaska”, his 2005 debut, has been pulled from school libraries across Florida, Iowa, and even his own former high school in Indiana -- largely, he says, by people who have never read it.
As for why he returned to fiction at all, Green says he eventually found his answer. He wanted to write about surviving the unsurvivable, and about the necessity of not being alone.
He just had to figure out how to say it without sounding like he was puking.
