John Green reveals cover of 'Hollywood, Ending,' his first adult novel

It’s time to reread those worn copies of “The Fault in Our Stars” and “Looking for Alaska” – John Green is coming back to fiction. 

The bestselling author’s most popular books evoke the teen yearning and Tumblr quotability of the 2010s golden era of young adult literature (which included “GreenLit,” as The New York Times put it), but he’s venturing into adult territory now.

“Hollywood, Ending” is Green’s first novel in almost 10 years, and his first written for adults. The story follows two young actors who get their big break in an Andy Warhol biopic, now forced to navigate their newfound celebrity, loss of privacy and new love.

USA TODAY is exclusively revealing the cover of “Hollywood, Ending,” which publishes Sept. 22 from Dutton Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House. 

See John Green's cover for ‘Hollywood, Ending’

In a statement to USA TODAY, Green praised Penguin Random House's Cassie Vu, the designer behind eye-catching covers like “Into the Blue” by Emma Brodie, “Romantic Comedy” by Curtis Sittenfeld and “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny" by Kiran Desai.

"Cassie Vu has created a beautiful cover that reflects so much about the themes of this book. Most of all, I wanted to write about love and how we fall into love despite all our fears and challenges, and I'm so grateful to Cassie for lending her genius to ‘Hollywood, Ending,’" Green told USA TODAY. 

When he announced the book in March, Green said that he’s been working on “Hollywood, Ending” since he finished his 2017 novel “Turtles All the Way Down.” Green honed in on the tension between personal and public lives. 

“It used to be that the business of trading in one’s frailties in exchange for public attention was mostly an issue for movie stars, but these days all of us who participate in the social internet are engaged in a really complex exchange of our experiences and our traumas and what used to be called our personal lives,” Green said. “It’s also about love and how we find it and it's about celebrity and the machinations of the fame machine, all of which I’ve seen up close over the last decade.”

Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY’s Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you’re reading at [email protected].