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Sidekick Super Review: Everything is Tuberculosis (2025) by John Green
- Jan 22
- 7 min read
The Basics
Page Length: 208
Audiobook Length: ~5.5 hours
Grade Reading Level: 10 +
Target Audience Age: 16+ (this book is not specifically listed as YA, but it's well suited for a younger audience, especially for high schoolers who are fans of John Green's writing style.)
Goodreads Score: 4.14 out of 5
Buy it HERE
Setting: mainly Sierra Leone (although it moves between specific locales)
Genre: Nonfiction
Topics: Tuberculosis, Global Healthcare, Disease Prevention, Medicine, Poverty, Medical Inequity, Colonialism, Culture, Ethics
Plot: When John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient in Sierra Leone, he began to notice patterns. Tuberculosis is everything, everywhere. Not only is it still the world’s deadliest infectious disease—killing over a million people every year despite there being an actual cure—but it has also shaped global culture in surprising ways, including the invention of the cowboy hat and the Adirondack chair.
In this book, you’ll learn about the evolution of the disease, from its romanticization—when it was considered an illness of artists, and some even hoped to catch it for the sake of their art—to its reputational decline, where it is now viewed as a disease of poverty and “uncleanliness.” Why did this shift happen? And why are so many people still dying from tuberculosis when a cure exists?
Through his experiences with Henry, his tuberculosis research, and his advocacy, John Green explores the inequities in healthcare, wealth, and access that keep this curable disease deadly. This book examines all of that—and more—while urging readers to confront a global health crisis hiding in plain sight.
Themes: Advocacy and moral responsibility, visibility and neglect, poverty and disease, health inequality/ethics in medicine, systemic failure, dehumanization
You might like this book if you like:
Humanitarian work/volunteering
Creative storytelling (YouTube creation, podcasting, social media influence)
learning about the medical field/scientific advancements
Books like Fever Year: The Killer Flu of 1918, Bubonic Panic: When Plague Invaded America, Just Mercy, Wintergirls, The Century for Young People
Movies like Extraordinary Measures, He Named Me Malala, Hidden Figures
Books/Movies like The Fault in Our Stars, Five Feet Apart, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Everything, Everything
Shows like Diagnosis, The Good Doctor, Explained, Rotten, Exploration Project, The Who Was? Show
Other books written by this author: The Fault in Our Stars, Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns, Turtles All the Way Down, An Abundance of Katherines
Teaching Everything is Tuberculosis in Class
Content
Language: very little
Sex/Romance: none
Violence/Scariness: no violence, but lots of mature content regarding disease, death, medical inequality, poverty, and social injustice. There are somewhat graphic descriptions of people with terminal illness, and lots of discussion about the trauma associated with it. Lots of emotional weight that could be uncomfortable for some readers
Drinking/Smoking/Drugs: lots of discussion about drug regimen treatment for tuberculosis, and descriptions of patients taking the drugs/side effects of them. Also, discussion about drugs taken for mental illness and anxiety treatment.
Class Novel-ability:
I don’t think this would be the best pick for a full-class novel since the subject matter might not appeal to everyone. That said, parts of this book would be great for a short study, and it would also work really well as a book club or lit circle option.
This book could spark so many interesting conversations about ethics, inequality, and advocacy. I could definitely see it being a strong reading choice for a unit that includes a debate or another type of speaking assessment.
The Star Qualities
John Green narrates the audiobook himself, which made the experience even better. I listened to about half of the book, and it was amazing to hear him read it aloud. If you’re a fan of John Green’s YouTube presence, you already know he’s eccentric and brilliant. The book is very well organized, but it also reads like a stream of consciousness, which makes it feel accessible, relatable, and especially suited for a younger audience. I love how his personality shines through such a heavy subject. The book is intense and shocking at times, but you can feel his passion in the writing, and that’s what makes it so appealing.
The story of Henry, the tuberculosis patient, is especially inspiring AND you can continue following his story now through social media. Learning about the disease through Henry’s experience (as told by John Green) was moving, sad, and shocking. At the end of the book, John shares Henry’s social media and YouTube channels, where Henry now uses his platform for good. Students would love knowing they can continue to follow Henry’s journey even after finishing the book.
This book genuinely changed the way I think. I couldn’t believe how many people still suffer from tuberculosis. I had ignorantly assumed it was no longer a major issue—that it had been cured and was no longer a problem. Only half of that is true. There is a cure, but tuberculosis is still the world’s deadliest infectious disease. People don’t have the same access to treatment that I do, and that realization was incredibly humbling. This is one of those books that sticks with you, and I think students would respond to it in the same way.
The book also includes pictures, poems, footnotes, and further reading suggestions at the end, all of which add depth to the reading experience. I even read part of one of the recommended texts John Green includes and really enjoyed it. The pictures bring Henry’s story to life, the poems connect beautifully to the book’s themes, and the footnotes help explain ideas that John mentions but doesn’t fully unpack in the main text. I loved all of these thoughtful details.
Book Talk Read Aloud Section
If you have the physical book, read pages 1-4 through the paragraph break ("but cannot do what it most wants")
If you don't, read the same pages in the Kindle reading sample here.
"Reading Like a Writer" Mentor Texts
I like this passage because it is a strong example of using an intertextual reference. First, the author clearly states his claim about human nature, and then he uses a poem to serve as the argument itself. The transition is smooth and beautifully written, and the poem perfectly suits the claim. Rather than overexplaining, the author allows the poem to function as a metaphor, trusting the reader to make the connection. This is a skill that's hard to accomplish--and this passage is one students should look to for reference.
I like this passage because of the clever way it frames its argument. It uses ethos, pathos, and logos to show that beliefs about illness directly produce inequality. The author uses statistics, listing, social evidence, and repetition, along with a moral argument that doesn’t feel forced. I find this passage particularly convincing because all of these strategies work together smoothly.
I love this passage. The statistics are shocking, and the comparison to Covid is especially powerful, since I—and most of the audience—have a direct connection to it. The use of the word we is also particularly convincing because it implicates all of us. The argument shifts from history and data to a moral failure of the audience, and it ends with a dramatic, blunt sentence that hits hard. It’s another wonderful example for students of how to frame a powerful argument.
Sentences for Combining and Imitation
Sentence sets for combining:
"People spit on trolleys and on sidewalks, on restaurant floors and even in the home." (Everything is Tuberculosis, p. 98)
People spit on trolleys.
People spit on sidewalks.
People spit on restaurant floors.
People even spit in the home.
"Women with consumption were believed to become more beautiful, ethereal, and wondrously pure." (p. 66)
Women with consumption were believed to become more beautiful.
They were believed to become more ethereal.
They were believed to become wondrously pure.
"Not long ago, I was walking in the backyard, staring up at the night sky, when I happened to step on a nail that went right through my show and an inch into my foot." (p. 180)
Not long ago, I was walking in the backyard.
I was staring up at the night sky.
I happened to step on a nail.
The nail went right through my shoe.
It went an inch into my foot.
Sentences for Imitation:
I’ve chosen a few of these sentences for structural reasons—the way they use italics, colons, or em dashes. But most I picked simply because they’re beautifully written and deeply moving. Some of the ones listed below work like little mentor texts, and almost all of them end with a sentence that really packs a punch. Students can learn from every one, and you’ll have plenty to choose from to show examples of sentences truly worth imitating.
"We pay a lot of attention to how we treat illness, and much less to the critical question of how we imagine illness." (p. 44)
"I asked him how he was doing, and he said, “I am happy, sir. I am encouraged.” He loved that word. Who couldn’t? Encouraged, like courage is something we rouse ourselves and others into." (p. 8)
"People who are treated as less than fully human by the social order are more susceptible to tuberculosis but it’s not because of their moral codes or choices or genetics, it’s because they are treated as less than fully human by the social order." (p. 86)
"At the time, I knew almost nothing about TB. To me, it was a disease of history–something that killed depressive nineteenth-century poets, not present-tense humans. But as a friend once told me, “Nothing is so privileged as thinking history belongs to the past.”" (p. 8)
“And so we have entered a strange era of human history: A preventable, curable infectious disease remains our deadliest. That’s the world we are currently choosing.” (p. 182)
“We are powerful enough to light the world at night, to artificially refrigerate food, to leave Earth’s atmosphere and orbit it from outer space. But we cannot save those we love from suffering. This is the story of human history as I understand it–the story of an organism that can do so much, but cannot do what it most wants.” (p. 4)
Used this book in your classroom? Tell us how in the comments!
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