Books like The Fault in Our Stars
What should you read after John Green’s novel? It depends on what you loved most about it.
- John Green
- 2012
- 336 pages
- Young adult contemporary
What did you love about it?
Choosing one reorders everything below.
Best books to read after The Fault in Our Stars
Ranked overall. Pick what you loved above to re-rank them.
Best overall matchEleanor & Park
Rainbow Rowell
First love written with the same precision and none of the syrup — two clever teenagers finding each other over shared obsessions, and a world that will not let them keep it.
- Teenagers who talk too well
- Jokes told at the worst moments
- Grief you can see coming
- Poverty and abuse, not illness
Best for more John GreenLooking for Alaska
John Green
Green's first novel, and the template: brilliant teenagers performing their own cleverness, a before-and-after structure, and a loss the book has been walking toward.
- Teenagers who talk too well
- Grief you can see coming
- A eulogy written early
- A girl who stays unknowable
Great matchIt's Kind of a Funny Story
Ned Vizzini
A teenager in a psychiatric ward being wry about it, written by someone who was there. The same insistence that being ill does not make you a lesson.
- Illness without the sentiment
- Jokes told at the worst moments
- Mental illness, not cancer
Worth a look — with a warningThirteen Reasons Why
Jay Asher
Built entirely around a message left behind for the living, which is Augustus's eulogy stretched to novel length and made considerably more accusatory.
- A eulogy written early
- Grief you can see coming
- Contested handling of suicide
Great matchAll the Bright Places
Jennifer Niven
Two damaged clever kids, a project that becomes a road trip, and an ending that hurts exactly as much as you were afraid it would.
- Grief you can see coming
- A trip to Amsterdam
- Teenagers who talk too well
- Grimmer, less funny
Great matchThe Perks of Being a Wallflower
Stephen Chbosky
A teenager processing more than he can carry by writing it down and quoting the books that helped. Hazel's relationship with An Imperial Affliction, essentially.
- A novel inside the novel
- Teenagers who talk too well
- Parents who are actually present
- Epistolary, and it takes adjusting
Great matchBefore I Fall
Lauren Oliver
A girl who knows precisely how much time is left and spends it deciding what to do with the people who love her. Hazel's arithmetic, structured as a loop.
- Grief you can see coming
- A eulogy written early
- A repeating-day structure
Worth a look — with a warningThe Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger
The origin of the too-articulate teenage narrator Green is both using and gently mocking. Worth reading to see where Hazel's voice came from.
- Teenagers who talk too well
- Grief you can see coming
- 1951, and it shows
Best for the honest registerSpeak
Laurie Halse Anderson
Anderson refuses every comforting move a book about a suffering teenager could make, and is funny anyway. The tonal discipline Green is aiming for.
- Illness without the sentiment
- Jokes told at the worst moments
- Depicts sexual assault
Best for the road tripPaper Towns
John Green
Green again, with the journey as the spine: a chase across states after someone who left clues, and a hard look at what happens when you build a person up.
- A trip to Amsterdam
- Teenagers who talk too well
- A novel inside the novel
- Lower stakes, nobody is dying
Great matchThe Spectacular Now
Tim Tharp
A charming boy performing charm at full volume while something goes badly wrong underneath. Augustus's cigarette metaphor, examined for a whole novel.
- Jokes told at the worst moments
- Teenagers who talk too well
- Alcoholism, handled unflinchingly
Great matchThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Mark Haddon
A young narrator whose particular way of seeing makes the ordinary world strange, with parents drawn as complicated adults rather than obstacles.
- Parents who are actually present
- A trip to Amsterdam
- Illness without the sentiment
- Autism representation now debated
Worth a look — with a warningA Separate Peace
John Knowles
The old school version of the same shape: a golden boy, a friend who survives him, and a narrator telling the story to work out his own part in it.
- Grief you can see coming
- A eulogy written early
- 1959 boarding-school register
What should you read after The Fault in Our Stars?
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green works on several levels at once, and which book you should read next depends on which of those levels got you. For most readers the closest match is Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell — first love written with the same precision and none of the syrup — two clever teenagers finding each other over shared obsessions, and a world that will not let them keep it.
If what stayed with you was teenagers who talk too well, read Looking for Alaska by John Green instead: green's first novel, and the template: brilliant teenagers performing their own cleverness, a before-and-after structure, and a loss the book has been walking toward. It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini is the other strong option — a teenager in a psychiatric ward being wry about it, written by someone who was there. The same insistence that being ill does not make you a lesson.
Loved something else?
Start from any book and we’ll build the list around your reasons.
Find my next book →NextBook is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program. We earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you. It doesn’t affect which books we recommend or how we rank them.
More “what to read next” lists
- Books like 1984
- Books like 2312
- Books like A Clockwork Orange
- Books like A Darker Shade of Magic
- Books like A Gentleman in Moscow
- Books like A Little Life
- Books like A Man Called Ove
- Books like A Memory Called Empire
- Books like A Wrinkle in Time
- Books like All Systems Red
- Books like All the Bright Places
- Books like Altered Carbon