John Green's seventh book, "Everything is Tuberculosis," was released March 18, 2025. "Everything is Tuberculosis" is a 198-page nonfiction novel about the persistence of the world's deadliest infection.
The world’s deadliest infectious disease persists every day despite being preventable and curable.
As a fan of John Green, I picked up Everything is Tuberculosis on its release date, March 18, 2025, without a second thought. I had no idea the massive impact the 198-page nonfiction masterpiece would have on my fundamental thinking, beliefs, and view of society. This book is stuck in my mind unlike many before it. Not a day has passed since my finishing it that I haven’t thought about Henry, his impact on the world, and the world’s impact on him and people alike.
Everything is Tuberculosis is a short book that explains the challenges and stigmas surrounding the infectious disease Tuberculosis. The novel explores many ideas but primarily follows the story of a young boy from Sierra Leone named Henry. Henry is seventeen years old when John Green meets him during his visit to Lakka Hospital. At Lakka — known as ‘the place one goes to die’ — Henry is receiving treatment for his multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). Henry gives Green a tour whilst talking about his days and struggles, which inspires John to learn more about the disease he once believed no longer existed. He hadn’t been aware of the rabbit hole that awaited him, leading him to write his seventh book.
Tuberculosis (TB) is an easily spreadable bacterial infection primarily of the lungs, caused by a bacteria called Mycobacterium Tuberculosis. TB has been the top killer of humans worldwide (even though it is both preventable and curable), being only briefly interrupted by COVID-19 in 2021 before reclaiming its place on the charts. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 25% of the global population is infected with the TB bacteria but only about 5-10% of those people have active TB.
In the 21st century, TB is not caused by the M. Tuberculosis bacteria; contemporary tuberculosis is caused by the human race and all of its biases. TB has used social discrimination to pave a path into the lives of poor and marginalized people. While TB isn’t aware of its own driving force, we are, and it’s our job to end it. We know both how to prevent and cure tuberculosis but human-built systems and ideologies are keeping resources from the places they’re needed most. “If TB became a problem in the rich world, attention and resources would rain down upon the illness until it ceased to be a problem for the rich, powerful, and able-bodied.” (Green, 153)
Ideas change when you look at the world through a specific lens. When you view the world through the lens of TB you see how TB impacted everything and everything impacted TB. The same thing happens when you put a different filter on. One’s view of the world warps dramatically when only focused on one thing. TB caused me to write this article the same as it has caused all other earthly (and unearthly) phenomena. Everything is about Tuberculosis, and Tuberculosis is about everything.
In an interview with the New York Times regarding the impact of the Trump Administration’s freezing of USAID on tuberculosis, John Green says, “I image it as a very long staircase that ends with the eradication of TB [the top of the staircase] and starts with hundreds of years ago when one in seven people were dying of TB [the bottom of the staircase], and we’ve been walking up this staircase, and we can either take steps forward or steps back.” He explains, “We didn’t take a step back, we fell down the staircase.”
John Green has excelled in writing nonfiction. His ability to write with such a casual yet impactful tone leaves his books both informative and accessible. You needn’t struggle to grasp the concept through complex sentences because his writing is strung so seamlessly. I have no critique for this book, it was beautiful in every way that it could have possibly been. I would recommend the book to anyone because not only does it inform the reader on the world’s deadliest infection, but also on the downfall that society has had on the universe through the first-hand tell of a TB survivor.
Henry is now in his early twenties living a happy life with his mother in Freetown, Sierra Leone. He has his own YouTube channel in which he uses his platform to raise awareness for tuberculosis and other important issues and things that he’s passionate about. Through all of his struggles, he never gave up and continued to strive for a better world. I hope we all find the mindset of Henry Reider to be truly inspiring.
A passage in the book that stood out to me reads, “When we know about suffering, when we are proximal to it, we are capable of extraordinary generosity.” It continues, “We can do so much for each other but only when we see one another in our full humanity, not as statistics or problems, but as people who deserve to be alive in the world.” We are the cause, but we are also the cure; we are all people who deserve to be alive in the world regardless of who we are or where we come from. We must see each other in our full humanity and climb back up the staircase once more.
Learn More:
https://act.pih.org/tb
https://tbfighters.org/
https://centerfortuberculosis.mayo.edu/resources/
https://www.lung.org/lung-health-diseases/lung-disease-lookup/tuberculosis/learn-about-tuberculosis
https://www.cdc.gov/tb/about/index.html