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Behind the billboards and premieres, the million-dollar deals and the A-list parties, there’s always been a dark side to showbiz. And the pressures of Hollywood are on display throughout John Green’s adult debut novel, Hollywood, Ending, which spotlights the many pitfalls of what may seem to be the glamorous movie star lifestyle.
Green has been a mainstay of the YA genre, but while The Fault in Our Stars made me cry as a teenager and Looking for Alaska had my middle school self in a chokehold, I wasn’t sure if his adult foray would capture me similarly. Boy was I wrong—and gladly so.
Hollywood, Ending is told from two perspectives: Juniper, a former child actress wholly dedicated to her craft, and Kai, an up-and-coming actor who doesn’t yet understand Hollywood. The two are cast in supporting roles together in an Andy Warhol biopic, where they learn the hard price of fame, how to navigate a sudden lack of privacy, and, perhaps, even fall in love.
True to form for Green, both characters feel well developed and thought out—they read like friends revealing the struggles they’re going through in their lives and their relationship.
The novel’s quick pacing and consistent unpredictability work to its favor. Sitting at around 300 pages, it’s a great quick escape into a world most people don’t get to experience… and perhaps won’t want to.
It’s thought-provoking and captivating, and I appreciated that the love story sometimes took a back seat to the novel’s main question: Is fame truly worth it?
Green took nearly a decade to craft Hollywood, Ending—a time during which people have become more and more invested in celebrity culture, while social media has advanced and expanded to a point of universality. There are fewer (if any) expectations of privacy for celebrities, and less downtime for them to just relax; Green captures this fraught dynamic perfectly, highlighting exactly how people can turn tragedy into drama—and fame into a prison.
Let’s talk about the love story too. Reading Juniper and Kai’s friends-to-lovers arc was refreshing. The two are polar opposites, yet everything the world hated about Juniper (her relentless perfectionism and how she was hard to work with) became Kai’s favorite things about her. In fact, both embraced the other’s flaws wholeheartedly.
Would it truly be a John Green novel without tragedy? No, but Green toes the line well, touching upon the lasting impacts that childhood abuse can have on a person while somehow not making the novel feel utterly depressing. Juniper and Kai’s backstories added another layer—and at times, a frustrating challenge—to their love story. I truly didn’t know if they would be able to find their way back to each other or if trauma would win in the end.
Hollywood, Ending is definitely a more mature novel than some of Green’s classic hits, but still has his signature style all over it: exploring a unique, real-life situation that most readers will never be in, but with the universal through-line of finding love through the hardships.
It also truly shows how much we take for granted.
