[12][22][23] He intended to become an Episcopal priest, but the traumatic experiences of working in a hospital with children suffering from life-threatening illnesses and injuries made him reconsider his path.

The structure was partially inspired by Green's reaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, months prior, and its status as a dividing line in history and in people's lives.

[52] Green's next novel was a collaboration with fellow young adult authors Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle titled Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances, released in September 2008.

Set in the suburbs of Orlando, Florida, the book is about the coming-of-age of the protagonist, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen and his search for Margo Roth Spiegelman, his neighbor and childhood sweetheart.

[69][70] In 2007, John and his brother Hank began a video blog project called Brotherhood 2.0 which ran from January 1 to December 31 of that year and was published to their YouTube channel "Vlogbrothers".

[5][80][81][82] The group, in collaboration with the two brothers, promote and participate in several other humanitarian efforts and community events, including loaning more than $4 million through Kiva.org, as well as the Project for Awesome (P4A).

The event includes a 48-hour livestream in which charities are voted on by the community while supporters pledge money and receive donated perks, such as artwork or digital content.

She is forced by her parents to attend a support group where she meets and falls in love with 17-year-old Augustus Waters, an ex-basketball player, amputee, and survivor of osteosarcoma.

[5][11][110] Green himself also saw a significant increase in his fame, with the Indianapolis Business Journal noting that he had much more "visibility and presence in his fans' lives" than other contemporaneous authors with equal or greater book sales.

[111] On the first anniversary of its release, John and his brother Hank performed a sold-out show at Carnegie Hall's Isaac Stern Auditorium in New York City, which also featured appearances from Neil Gaiman and The Mountain Goats.

[136][5][10] After two years of producing Crash Course and Hank's science-related channel SciShow through the grants provided by YouTube, the Green brothers sought a more sustainable way to fund the projects.

[154] Taking a mainly humorous tone, each podcast consists of the brothers reading a series of questions submitted by listeners and offering their "dubious" advice.

[17][174] He stopped taking his prescribed medications hoping to reinvigorate his creativity and his mental health suffered, with him later describing the experience saying, "I can't think straight—I can only think in swirls and scribbles."

[179][180][174] Speaking about the novel, Green said, "This is my first attempt to write directly about the kind of mental illness that has affected my life since childhood, so while the story is fictional, it is also quite personal.

[228][227] Life's Library was free to participate in, with paid options available to receive digital or physical subscriptions, containing additional materials such as a discussion podcast, or a version of the book itself.

[258] A deal with the Stop TB Partnership was formed after J&J's evergreening of the patent received public backlash from an awareness campaign started by Green in June; J&J stated they had decided to allow generics to be produced the month prior.

[259][260][261][262] Two months later, Green urged Cepheid, an American molecular diagnostics company owned by Danaher Corporation, to lower the cost of the cartridges used in their GeneXpert machines to $5, hoping to save lives by giving more people access to early detection of tuberculosis.

[266][267][268][269] That same month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) named John Green a 2024 "TB Elimination Champion" and he published another op-ed in The Washington Post on the need for greater access to tuberculosis diagnostics in poorer countries.

While reviewing the Andrew Smith young-adult novel, Winger, A. J. Jacobs of The New York Times used the term "GreenLit" to describe young adult books that contain "sharp dialogue, defective authority figures, occasional boozing, unrequited crushes, and one or more heartbreaking twists.

"[294][17] According to The Wall Street Journal, "[s]ome credit him with ushering in a new golden era for contemporary, realistic, literary teen fiction, following more than a decade of dominance by books about young wizards, sparkly vampires, and dystopia.

Zareen Jaffery, executive editor of Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers said: "What I really like about what people are calling 'the John Green effect' is that there's more of an interest in authentic, genuine, relatable characters.

With the release of the Turtles All the Way Down in 2017, several reviewers referenced a dismissive perception of Green's now very popular œuvre as "sad teen books", which had emerged since the success of The Fault in Our Stars.

Matt Haig of The Guardian wrote, "[Turtles All the Way Down] often dwells in cliché, but only as pop songs and epic poems do, mining the universal to create something that speaks to the familiar rhythms of the heart.

"[301] Green has received criticism for his perceived writing of "Manic Pixie Dream Girls", a term coined by Nathan Rabin to describe a female character that, "exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures".

[58][59][302] Paper Towns and the character of Margo Roth Spiegelman have often been cited as a deconstruction of the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" trope, and Green has stated he specifically wrote her as such.

In October 2022, Green tweeted, "I think basically all criticisms of my work are correct and justifiable other than the most popular one, 'he writes manic pixie dream girls,' which is just so stupid.

Green responded with a letter to the board, stating the library should "walk this awful policy back and allow the real experts to decide where to shelve my books and those of my colleagues."

A Twitter post he made stating, "You Won't Catch Me Alive or Dead in Fishers, Indiana" was turned into a t-shirt by a local clothing company, with proceeds being donated to the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library.

[159][90] The New York Times noted John as having "[an] uncanny knack for channeling the voice of marginalized but smart, self-identifying nerds, a gift he has turned into a YouTube empire.

Amelia Thomson-Deveaux writing for The American Prospect commented that, "what makes Nerdfighteria so potent does seem to be the moral imperative that the Brothers Green throw at their bajillion viewers' feet: to take their weirdness and anxiety and turn it into empathy.