Is This Tom?

John Green has created a new type of storytelling. He takes a conventionally written story and masks it behind riddles, which can be found at the isthistom YouTube channel.


The first video. I've only gotten halfway through the riddle.

The channel is run by Alexander Basalyga, the same man who created the riddle site thisisnottom.com. On YouTube, he posts a video-riddle every week. The video, like Thisisnottom.com, leads you through a series of riddles, and it finally ends with a book chapter by John Green. The YouTube riddle is an even further way to develop the riddle, because it opens up the ability to play with moving images and sounds.

John writes about a girl called YFN, or Your Faithful Narrator, since she has no idea of her identity. She is quite a messed up girl, as it seems. And her story, if it were real – which it may or may not be – is a strange one. The book is non-text-searchable, so don’t bother even trying. But there are hints and spoilers on the book forum. John gives the story behind the story.