Turtles All the Way Down

By John Green

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“So surprising and moving and true that I became completely unstrung.” – The New York Times

Named a best book of the year by: The New York Times, NPR, TIME, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Southern Living, Publishers Weekly, BookPage, A.V. Club, Bustle, BuzzFeed, Vulture, and many more!

JOHN GREEN, the acclaimed author of Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars, returns with a story of shattering, unflinching clarity in this brilliant novel of love, resilience, and the power of lifelong friendship.

Aza Holmes never intended to pursue the disappearance of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Pickett’s son Davis. 

Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
• Release date: Oct 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9780525555353

John Green

John Green es el autor best seller de novelas como Bajo la misma estrella, Buscando a Alaska y Mil veces hasta siempre. Sus libros han recibido numerosos reconocimientos, entre los cuales destacan la medalla Printz, el Premio de Honor Printz y el Premio Edgard. Green ha sido finalista en dos ocasiones del Book Prize del LA Times y fue seleccionado por la revista Time como una de las 100 personas más influyentes del mundo. Es también guionista y presentador del podcast The Anthropocene Reviewed, que ha recibido excelentes críticas. Junto con su hermano, Hank, John Green ha creado muchos proyectos online de vídeo, incluyendo Vlogbrothers y el canal educativo Crash Course. Vive con su familia en Indianápolis, Indiana.

Book preview

ONE

AT THE TIME I FIRST REALIZED I might be fictional, my weekdays were spent at a publicly funded institution on the north side of Indianapolis called White River High School, where I was required to eat lunch at a particular time—between 12:37 P.M. and 1:14 P.M.—by forces so much larger than myself that I couldn’t even begin to identify them. If those forces had given me a different lunch period, or if the tablemates who helped author my fate had chosen a different topic of conversation that September day, I would’ve met a different end—or at least a different middle. But I was beginning to learn that your life is a story told about you, not one that you tell.

Of course, you pretend to be the author. You have to. You think, I now choose to go to lunch, when that monotone beep rings from on high at 12:37. But really, the bell decides. You think you’re the painter, but you’re the canvas.

Hundreds of voices were shouting over one another in the cafeteria, so that the conversation became mere sound, the rushing of a river over rocks. And as I sat beneath fluorescent cylinders spewing aggressively artificial light, I thought about how we all believed ourselves to be the hero of some personal epic, when in fact we were basically identical organisms colonizing a vast and windowless room that smelled of Lysol and lard.

I was eating a peanut butter and honey sandwich and drinking a Dr Pepper. To be honest, I find the whole process of masticating plants and animals and then shoving them down my esophagus kind of disgusting, so I was trying not to think about the fact that I was eating, which is a form of thinking about it.

Across the table from me, Mychal Turner was scribbling in a yellow-paper notebook. Our lunch table was like a long-running play on Broadway: The cast changed over the years, but the roles never did. Mychal was The Artsy One. He was talking with Daisy Ramirez, who’d played the role of my Best and Most Fearless Friend since elementary school, but I couldn’t follow their conversation over the noise of all the others.

What was my part in this play? The Sidekick. I was Daisy’s Friend, or Ms. Holmes’s Daughter. I was somebody’s something.

I felt my stomach begin to work on the sandwich, and even over everybody’s talking, I could hear it digesting, all the bacteria chewing the slime of peanut butter—the students inside of me eating at my internal cafeteria. A shiver convulsed through me.

Didn’t you go to camp with him? Daisy asked me.

With who?

Davis Pickett, she said.

Yeah, I said. Why?

Aren’t you listening? Daisy asked. I am listening, I thought, to the cacophony of my digestive tract. Of course I’d long known that I was playing host to a massive collection of parasitic organisms, but I didn’t much like being reminded of it. By cell count, humans are approximately 50 percent microbial, meaning that about half of the cells that make you up are not yours at all. There are something like a thousand times more microbes living in my particular biome than there are human beings on earth, and it often seems like I can feel them living and breeding and dying in and on me. I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and tried to control my breathing. Admittedly, I have some anxiety problems, but I would argue it isn’t irrational to be concerned about the fact that you are a skin-encased bacterial colony.

Mychal said, His dad was about to be arrested for bribery or something, but the night before the raid he disappeared. There’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward out for him.

And you know his kid, Daisy said.

"Knew him," I answered.

I watched Daisy attack her school-provided rectangular pizza and green beans with a fork. She kept glancing up at me, her eyes widening as if to say, Well? I could tell she wanted me to ask her about something, but I couldn’t tell what, because my stomach wouldn’t shut up, which was forcing me deep inside a worry that I’d somehow contracted a parasitic infection.

I could half hear Mychal telling Daisy about his new art project, in which he was using Photoshop to average the faces of a hundred people named Mychal, and the average of their faces would be this new, one-hundred-and-first Mychal, which was an interesting idea, and I wanted to listen, but the cafeteria was so loud, and I couldn’t stop wondering whether there was something wrong with the microbial balance of power inside me.

Excessive abdominal noise is an uncommon, but not unprecedented, presenting symptom of infection with the bacteria Clostridium difficile, which can be fatal. I pulled out my phone and searched human microbiome to reread Wikipedia’s introduction to the trillions of microorganisms currently inside me. I clicked over to the article about C. diff, scrolling to the part about how most C. diff infections occur in hospitals. I scrolled down farther to a list of symptoms, none of which I had, except for the excessive abdominal noises, although I knew from previous searches that the Cleveland Clinic had reported the case of one person who’d died of C. diff after presenting at the hospital with only abdominal pain and fever. I reminded myself that I didn’t have a fever, and my self replied: You don’t have a fever YET.

At the cafeteria, where a shrinking slice of my consciousness still resided, Daisy was telling Mychal that his averaging project shouldn’t be about people named Mychal but about imprisoned men who’d later been exonerated. It’ll be easier, anyway, she said, because they all have mug shots taken from the same angle, and then it’s not just about names but about race and class and mass incarceration, and Mychal was like, You’re a genius, Daisy, and she said, You sound surprised, and meanwhile I was thinking that if half the cells inside of you are not you, doesn’t that challenge the whole notion of me as a singular pronoun, let alone as the author of my fate? And I fell pretty far down that recursive wormhole until it transported me completely out of the White River High School cafeteria into some non-sensorial place only properly crazy people get to visit.

Ever since I was little, I’ve pressed my right thumbnail into the finger pad of my middle finger, and so now there’s this weird callus over my fingerprint. After so many years of doing this, I can open up a crack in the skin really easily, so I cover it up with a Band-Aid to try to prevent infection. But sometimes I get worried that there already is an infection, and so I need to drain it, and the only way to do that is to reopen the wound and press out any blood that will come. Once I start thinking about splitting the skin apart, I literally cannot not do it. I apologize for the double negative, but it’s a real double negative of a situation, a bind from which negating the negation is truly the only escape. So anyway, I started to want to feel my thumbnail biting into the skin of my finger pad, and I knew that resistance was more or less futile, so beneath the cafeteria table, I slipped the Band-Aid off my finger and dug my thumbnail into the callused skin until I felt the crack open.

Holmesy, Daisy said. I looked up at her. We’re almost through lunch and you haven’t even mentioned my hair. She shook out her hair, with so-red-they-were-pink highlights. Right. She’d dyed her hair.

I swum up out of the depths and said, It’s bold.

I know, right? It says, ‘Ladies and gentlemen and also people who do not identify as ladies or gentlemen, Daisy Ramirez won’t break her promises, but she will break your heart. Daisy’s self-proclaimed life motto was Break Hearts, Not Promises. She kept threatening to get it tattooed on her ankle when she turned eighteen. Daisy turned back to Mychal, and I to my thoughts. The stomach grumbling had grown, if anything, louder. I felt like I might vomit. For someone who actively dislikes bodily fluids, I throw up quite a lot.

Holmesy, you okay? Daisy asked. I nodded. Sometimes I wondered why she liked me, or at least tolerated me. Why any of them did. Even I found myself annoying.

I could feel sweat sprouting from my forehead, and once I begin to sweat, it’s impossible to stop. I’ll keep sweating for hours, and not just my face or my armpits. My neck sweats. My boobs sweat. My calves sweat. Maybe I did have a fever.

Beneath the table, I slid the old Band-Aid into my pocket and, without looking, pulled out a new one, unwrapped it, and then glanced down to apply it to my finger. All the while, I was breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, in the manner advised by Dr. Karen Singh, exhaling at a pace that would make a candle flicker but not go out. Imagine that candle, Aza, flickering from your breath but still there, always there. So I tried that, but the thought spiral kept tightening anyway. I could hear Dr. Singh saying I shouldn’t get out my phone, that I mustn’t look up the same questions over and over, but I got it out anyway, and reread the Human Microbiota Wikipedia article.

The thing about a spiral is, if you follow it inward, it never actually ends. It just keeps tightening, infinitely.

---

—

I sealed the Ziploc bag around the last quarter of my sandwich, got up, and tossed it into an overfilled trash can. I heard a voice from behind me. How concerned should I be that you haven’t said more than two words in a row all day?

Thought spiral, I mumbled in reply. Daisy had known me since we were six, long enough to get it.

I figured. Sorry, man. Let’s hang out today.

This girl Molly walked up to us, smiling, and said, Uh, Daisy, just FYI, your Kool-Aid dye job is staining your shirt.

Daisy looked down at her shoulders, and indeed, her striped top had turned pink in spots. She flinched for a second, then straightened her spine. Yeah, it’s part of the look, Molly. Stained shirts are huge in Paris right now. She turned away from Molly and said, "Right, so we’ll go to your house and watch Star Wars: Rebels. Daisy was really into Star Wars—and not just the movies, but also the books and the animated shows and the kids’ show where they’re all made out of Lego. Like, she wrote fan fiction about Chewbacca’s love life. And we will improve your mood until you are able to say three or even four words in a row; sound good?"

Sounds good.

And then you can take me to work. Sorry, but I need a ride.

Okay. I wanted to say more, but the thoughts kept coming, unbidden and unwanted. If I’d been the author, I would’ve stopped thinking about my microbiome. I would’ve told Daisy how much I liked her idea for Mychal’s art project, and I would’ve told her that I did remember Davis Pickett, that I remembered being eleven and carrying a vague but constant fear. I would’ve told her that I remembered once at camp lying next to Davis on the edge of a dock, our legs dangling over, our backs against the rough-hewn planks of wood, staring together up at a cloudless summer sky. I would’ve told her that Davis and I never talked much, or even looked at each other, but it didn’t matter, because we were looking at the same sky together, which is maybe more intimate than eye contact anyway. Anybody can look at you. It’s quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see.

TWO

THE FEAR HAD MOSTLY SWEATED OUT OF ME, but as I walked from the cafeteria to history class, I couldn’t stop myself from taking out my phone and rereading the horror story that is the Human Microbiota Wikipedia article. I was reading and walking when I heard my mother shout at me through her open classroom door. She was seated behind her metal desk, leaning over a book. Mom was a math teacher, but reading was her great love.

No phones in the hallway, Aza! I put my phone away and went into her classroom. There were four minutes remaining in my lunch period, which was the perfect length for a Mom conversation. She looked up and must’ve seen something in my eyes. You okay?

Yeah, I said.

You’re not anxious? she asked. At some point, Dr. Singh had told Mom not to ask if I was feeling anxious, so she’d stopped phrasing it as a direct question.

I’m fine.

You’ve been taking your meds, she said. Again, not a direct question.

Yeah, I said, which was broadly true. I’d had a bit of a crack-up my freshman year, after which I was prescribed a circular white pill to be taken once daily. I took it, on average, maybe thrice weekly.

You look . . . Sweaty, is what I knew she meant.

Who decides when the bells ring? I asked. Like, the school bells?

You know what, I have no idea. I suppose that’s decided by someone on the superintendent’s staff.

Like, why are lunch periods thirty-seven minutes long instead of fifty? Or twenty-two? Or whatever?

Your brain seems like a very intense place, Mom answered.

It’s just weird, how this is decided by someone I don’t know and then I have to live by it. Like, I live on someone else’s schedule. And I’ve never even met them.

Yes, well, in that respect and many others, American high schools do rather resemble prisons.

My eyes widened. Oh my God, Mom, you’re so right. The metal detectors. The cinder-block walls.

They’re both overcrowded and underfunded, Mom said. And both have bells that ring to tell you when to move.

And you don’t get to choose when you eat lunch, I said. And prisons have power-thirsty, corrupt guards, just like schools have teachers.

She shot me a look, but then started laughing. You headed straight home after school?

Yeah, then I gotta take Daisy to work.

Mom nodded. Sometimes I miss you being a little kid, but then I remember Chuck E. Cheese.

She’s just trying to save money for college.

My mom glanced back down at her book. You know, if we lived in Europe, college wouldn’t cost much. I braced myself for Mom’s cost-of-college rant. "There are free universities in Brazil. Most of Europe. China. But here they want to charge you twenty-five thousand dollars a year, for in-state tuition. I just finished paying off my loans a few years ago, and soon we’ll have to take out ones for you."

I’m only a junior. I’ve got plenty of time to win the lottery. And if that doesn’t work out, I’ll just pay for school by selling meth.

She smiled wanly. Mom really worried about paying for me to go to school. You sure you’re okay? she asked.

I nodded as the bell sounded from on high, sending me to history.

---

—

By the time I made it to my car after school, Daisy was already in the passenger seat. She’d changed out of the stained shirt she’d been wearing into her red Chuck E. Cheese polo, and was sitting with her backpack in her lap, drinking a container of school milk. Daisy was the only person I’d trusted with a key to Harold. Mom didn’t even have her own Harold key, but Daisy did.

Please do not drink non-clear liquids in Harold, I told her.

Milk is a clear liquid, she said.

Lies, I answered, and before we set off, I drove Harold over to the front entrance and waited while Daisy threw away her milk.

---

—

Maybe you’ve been in love. I mean real love, the kind my grandmother used to describe by quoting the apostle Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, the love that is kind and patient, that does not envy or boast, that beareth all things and believeth all things and endureth all things. I don’t like to throw the L-word around; it’s too good and rare a feeling to cheapen with overuse. You can live a good life without ever knowing real love, of the Corinthians variety, but I was fortunate to have found it with Harold.

He was a sixteen-year-old Toyota Corolla with a paint color called Mystic Teal Mica and an engine that clanked in a steady rhythm like the beating of his immaculate metallic heart. Harold had been my dad’s car—in fact, Dad had named him Harold. Mom never sold him, so he stayed in the garage for eight years, until my sixteenth birthday.

Getting Harold’s engine running after so long took all of the four hundred dollars I’d saved over the course of my life—allowances, change ferreted away when Mom sent me down the street to buy something at the Circle K, summer work at Subway, Christmas gifts from my grandparents—so, in a way, Harold was the culmination of my whole being, at least financially speaking. And I loved him. I dreamed about him quite a lot. He had an exceptionally spacious trunk, a custom-installed, huge white steering wheel, and a backseat bench clad in pebble-beige leather. He accelerated with the gentle serenity of the Buddhist Zen master who knows nothing really needs to be done quickly, and his brakes whined like metal machine music, and I loved him.

However, Harold did not have Bluetooth connectivity, or for that matter a CD player, meaning that while in Harold’s company, one had three choices: 1. Drive in silence; 2. Listen to the radio; or 3. Listen to Side B of my dad’s cassette of Missy Elliott’s excellent album So Addictive, which—because it would not eject from the cassette player—I’d already heard hundreds of times in my life.

And in the end, Harold’s imperfect audio system happened to be the last note in the melody of coincidences that changed my life.

---

—

Daisy and I were scanning stations in search of a song by a particular brilliant and underappreciated boy band when we landed upon a news story. —Indianapolis-based Pickett Engineering, a construction firm employing more than ten thousand people worldwide, today— I moved my hand toward the scan button, but Daisy pushed it away.

This is what I was telling you about! she said as the radio continued, —one-hundred-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to the whereabouts of company CEO Russell Pickett. Pickett, who disappeared the night before a police raid on his home related to a fraud and bribery investigation, was last seen at his riverside compound on September eighth. Anyone with information regarding his whereabouts is encouraged to call the Indianapolis Police Department.

A hundred thousand dollars, Daisy said. "And you know his kid."

Knew, I said. For two summers, after fifth and sixth grades, Davis and I had gone to Sad Camp together, which is what we’d called Camp Spero, this place down in Brown County for kids with dead parents.

Aside from hanging out together at Sad Camp, Davis and I would also sometimes see each other during the school year, because he lived just down the river from me, but on the opposite bank. Mom and I lived on the side that sometimes flooded. The Picketts lived on the side with the stone-gabled walls that forced the rising water in our direction.

He probably wouldn’t even remember me.

Everyone remembers you, Holmesy, she said.

"That’s

Reviews for Turtles All the Way Down

[carriewuj · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

John Green has the acute ability to write teen characters and situations in ways that are both authentic and profoundly meaningful. He ‘gets it’ which must be deeply comforting to his readers. Here he gives us Aza Holmes, a high school junior with pretty severe OCD which is not some trivial need to be organized (nod to E.A. for this point!) but a sometimes debilitating mental illness. While her friends eat lunch and chatter, appreciating the break in the school day, she is worried about potential microbes she has ingested with her lunch and how they might already be infecting her. Same goes double for when she is kissing a boy. Her best friend Daisy is a force and understands and supports Aza as best she can, but she doesn’t really know what it’s like inside her head. This is all brought to the forefront and tested when Daisy brings up a news brief about a missing billionaire and the $100,000 reward for info about his disappearance, which they both could desperately use for college. She recognizes that Aza once knew his teenage son, Davis Pickett. In true fearless Daisy style, she engineers a way for them to meet up with him again, and pushes Aza to get romantically involved with Davis, all the while with eyes on the prize and some cyber sleuthing. That is the main external plot construct, but becomes wallpaper for Aza’s illness and her recursive spiral. Her relationship with Davis, while founded on ruse, becomes very real and they both help each other in ways no one else can. Set in a stark, dark Indiana winter, there is indeed a downward spiral (turtles all the way down) for everyone, but hope for light at the end of the tunnel . ;). Great writing - Green never patronizes his readers - and lots of thoughtful, relevant literary references. Lots to think about and discuss.

[greisn1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Oh I was really looking forward to reading this book! Unfortunately, I think my expectations were set too high. I really liked Aza as a character, and felt like I could relate to her and her internal struggles. But this story didn’t seem to have too clear a focus. Yes, in a broad way the focus is on the search for the billionaire. But really the whole book just kind of wanders around until it gets to the end.

[ofmiceandren · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

most faithful depiction of OCD i've ever read.

[abiiharrisonn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

this was not what i expected at all, but i found it such an interesting approach to parts of mental health issues that aren’t talked about as much as some of the more common conditions. i thought the story itself got a little lost in some places, but it almost seemed part of the writing style.

[bell7_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Aza Holmes and her friend Daisy Ramirez decide they want to get the $100,000 reward for giving information on the disappearance of a local billionaire to police. She becomes friendly with the man's son, Davis, whom she knew years ago from going to a camp for kids who had dealt with a death in the family ("Sad Camp"), and they start to become friendly. All of this is complicated by the fact that Aza's OCD and invasive thoughts are particularly difficult right now.

This is much more a story of friendship and first love (not, technically, a romance, I hasten to add) than it is a mystery. Though it starts with Aza and Daisy investigating, that becomes a subplot and the emphasis is more on the fact that, unlike some well-known detectives in popular culture, Aza's OCD is not a detective superpower but actually gets in the way of, well, everything. John Green himself has OCD, and the way he describes Aza's thought spirals and compulsions is extremely intense and at times hard to read. Aza is struggling to figure out who she is not just as a teenager but also as someone struggling with mental illness - who is she apart from her thoughts, that are sometimes destructive? And there are tensions in her friendship with Aza and her budding relationship with Davis. A realistic look at mental health, the struggle with something from which you never get "better", while still being hopeful.

[m.belljackson · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Blech on the disgusting finger body theme woven throughout the plot =

Is this what YA audiences crave?

Nice cover.

[profh-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I appreciate the author's attempt at addressing an important subject to a younger audience. Sadly, the lack of sophistication, nuance, art, and craft makes for a cliche ridden tale. This is a missed opportunity because with better editing and more attention to detail, this could have been very good.

[foof2you · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A wealthy billionaire has become a fugitive, a huge reward of $100,000 dollars is announced for information on the whereabouts of the fugitive. Aza and her good friend Daisy decide to start looking for the billionaire. Friendships are tested, mental illness is discussed and this is one remarkable detective story.

[fmclellan-29530 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

John Green's best yet. Read it in one big gulp. Great characters, sympathetically drawn. Just loved it.

[raschneid_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

3.5. This was a quick read and a really excellent and nuanced, if gut-wrenching portrayal of mental illness. Folks who experience anxiety or OCD, please look after yourself while reading this book; I am prone to anxious thought patterns and found this book a distressing read at times.

John Green is such a cerebral storyteller that the text of his novels spend a lot of time commenting on the themes of previous novels, and Turtles All the Way Down is definitely a Green novel in that regard, with a lot to say about previous books such as Paper Towns and about YA storytelling in general. I'd like to see him move on (as he did, sort of, with The Fault in our Stars), but the result here was still a solid book. The book also features trademark Green-ian characters, like Aza's self-assured, fan fiction-writing best friend Daisy (who I adored) and philosophical maybe-love interest Davis (who I found dull as nails).

As always, Green's strengths are his boundless curiosity about everything and his boosterism of teens and youth culture. As an advocate and mentor for this age group, he is perhaps without equal. And as a crossover writer with an adult fanbase, writing during a time when youth culture is particularly demonized, I applaud him for spreading the word that the kids these days are alright, even when they're struggling.

ETA: I will defend to the death Green's characters' right to have super philosophical conversations, because that was my lived high school experience, even without 2017 Wikipedia at our fingertips.

[briars_reviews · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I made a silly decision to stay away from Turtles All the Way Down by John Green when it came out. Why? Well, the hype was not there. Everyone was boohooing and complaining about how this book was such a letdown, and I let that crowd get to me. And that was such a mistake!

I seriously loved this book. It's a contemporary novel following a teen as she learns to live with her mental health struggles and try to find herself. Throw in a mystery, relationship drama, and friendship rollercoasters, and it's a real winner. The book felt so real and so honest. I applaud John Green for sharing such a personal story, and for pulling at my heart strings yet again.

So what's the book all about? Aza Holmes is your typical teenager - she goes to school, has tons of homework, is thinking about her future, and is trying to find her way in this crazy world. She's got friends, and like most people these days - anxiety. Her anxiety is a struggle, since she hasn't really learned how to live with it yet. That's one big thing this book stresses - we don't just magically get over our troubles and POOF we're fixed - anxiety can be something we need to learn to live with. Throw in a cute but rich boy who's Dad mysteriously disappeared, and her inner Sherlock Holmes (get the last name yet?) comes out. Friendship drama, Star Wars Easter eggs galore, and the value of tripping your way through this crazy journey we call life all packs itself tight in this contemporary, fictional read.

I really liked this book and it was hard to put down. Cast aside the complainers who said this wasn't better than The Fault In Our Stars. This book stands alone in a whole different category, and is clearly a very personal book. It's not a cancer love story, it's a story of personal growth (with a dash of mystery).

This book is not going to be for everyone. It pulls at my heart strings because even as an adult I'm learning how to cope with my internal struggles and how to manage them. It's hard feeling like the friend no one wants to have. It's hard trying to figure out what you want in a relationship. It's extremely tough going through mental health issues when you just don't know WHY it's going on or how to ease your brain down to a manageable level. It's REALLY STINKIN' HARD. This book sat so well with me because I've been there, done that, and now I'm back on the track again. It really hits home. Buuuut... that's also why you might not like it. It can really hit home! It's also not a fast paced love story, which we saw in TFIOS. It's very different and will sit differently depending on your life experiences and expectations of a John Green book.

Overall, my opinion stands that this is an excellent book. It's charming, smart, and is very relatable.

Four out of five stars.

[ellenh_28 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A novel of teen friendship, mental health and a cumbersome mystery. I struggled with the teen angst and philosophical meandering throughout. All in all it was a great introduction to what anxiety can be like in one's life. I'm not sure I'd recommend it to someone struggling though.

[amcheri-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

While it didn't rip my heart out entirely, the way I expected it to, I spent the majority of the book riveted. Green does such an incredible job of putting Aza's thoughts on display for us that I couldn't get away. A wonderfully emotional journey.

[knerd.knitter · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

 Maybe my problem with this book was that the character's struggles with anxiety just hit too close to home...

[castlelass · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Young adult novel set in Indiana about teens who get involved in trying to figure out what happened to a missing billionaire accused of fraud. Sixteen-year-old Aza knows Davis, the billionaire’s son, from a camp she attended nine years ago. Her best friend Daisy is interested in the monetary reward and convinces Aza to contact Davis. Aza suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder and germaphobia. Aza’s anxiety is worsened when she and Davis begin seeing each other.

The characters are involved in the usual concerns of teens. The mental health angle is realistic, especially given Aza’s traumatic past. It portrays what it is like to experience an intrusive voice that leads to OCD behavior. However, the whole billionaire business did not appeal to me at all. It is far-fetched and relies heavily on multiple coincidences. The plot also includes an at-fault accident where the legal ramifications are entirely ignored.

This is a book where the reader needs to accept the implausible plot and just go with the flow. I might have appreciated it more if I were in the target audience. It pales in comparison to The Fault in Our Stars.

[bookwyrmm_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Not a realistic catalyst, but so many realistic relationships and characters.

[dairyqueen84 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked this much more than I thought I would. You can feel Aza's thought spirals and torment. Daisy's reaction was unduly harsh, I thought. Anyone who knows someone who struggles with any sort of mental illness but especially obsessive compulsive disorder should read this book.

[mutantpudding · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A good book and happy to see anxiety and OCD portrayed well in a YA fiction, even though I don't think it was particularly beneficial for me personally to read about since my own intrusive thoughts are already working hard to make my life weird.

[fromthecomfychair · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I've read most of John Green's YA novels, and liked them. My daughter wasn't too keen on this one, and I put off reading it until I started reading his new book, The Anthropocene Reviewed. There I learned about his own battle with anxiety and OCD, so decided to read Turtles.

First thing I noticed was that his female protagonist, Aza, talks like a guy. And so does her best friend, Daisy. They do not talk about things the way any females I've ever known talk about them. They sound like John Green, and his male protagonists from other novels. This is a problem for me because Aza is the narrator. I just could never picture her and Daisy as females. I'm wondering why he created a female main character. Was it to distance himself from what he was writing about? I think it would have been better if the main character had been male. Has anyone else noticed this in the, what, five years since it was published?

And though I have personally suffered from anxiety and depression, I was unable to understand the suffering of Aza. I mean, I got it, but I didn't feel it. It felt strange that Aza's Mom was so close, yet so far away. She clearly didn't get it at all, except that she could see her daughter was suffering, without being able to understand what the suffering was about.

Neal Shusterman's Challenger Deep, about his son's battle with schizophrenia, was far more understandable to me, though I have no personal experience with it and anyone close who has it.

So I'd have to say this was my least favorite John Green novel, and I agree with someone that the cover art doesn't help sell it.

[formerenglishteacher · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is the third John Green book I’ve read. Two of the three, this one and “The Fault in Our Stars,” are YA (young adult) books. In fact, that is really what John Green is known for. The audience for this book according to one of the review services is 14 to 18-year-olds, and I would agree with that. The third Green book I read was “The Anthropocene Reviewed.” This is a book of essays and is not considered a YA book, although that age read could certainly read the book. With all of that on the table, I must say my 3/5 star review is from my perspective. I am a 71-year-old retired high school English teacher. Since I retired I haven’t gravitated to YA literature, although while I taught I read a lot of it and recommended much of it to my students. I would certainly have recommended “Turtles All the Way Down” to a 15-year-old ninth grader. For my tastes, however, the book included far too much teenage drama and angst. The main character’s best friend, Daisy, seemed to me to be the caricature of the obnoxious high school female. I’ll give Green credit, though. He obviously knows teens. As I recall, his kids are in that age group or have been recently, so I’m sure that helps. For me, that drama and the super-helicopter mom of the main character, Aza Holmes, was almost more than I could stand. As many professional and reader reviews say, the mental health issues raised in the book are important ones, and that alone makes it worthy of the glowing reviews most have given it. It just isn’t my cup of tea.

[fionaanne · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

My least favorite of Mr. Green's novels thus far. It feels unfinished and in need of more editing and time.

[wishanem · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is partly a mystery, but it is mostly a character study of a teenager with mental illness. The story is fast-paced enough to hold a reader's interest, but there are ruminations and charming, thoughtful insights too. There were a handful of implausibilities and factual errors that jumped out at me, but they're all easily explained by perspective of the narrator.

I generally feel uncomfortable reading about the experience of mental illness. It's weirdly intimate. There's something different about empathizing with a likeable and emotionally relatable character who is suffering mental anguish compared to someone suffering physical pain. I think a book which was any more focused on that would've been too much for me, but this book balanced the pain with enough other stuff that I could handle it.

I picked up this book thinking it would be an easy read, because it is intended for young adults. It wasn't, and I got more out of it than I was anticipating.

[thoroughlyme · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Turtles All The Way Down is definitely a John Green book, with all the pros and cons that statement comes with. That being said, I did like it. Quite a bit. Turtles All The Way Down is the latest novel written by John Green. The novel follows the story of Aza Holmes, a sixteen-year-old girl with a pretty severe anxiety disorder. Sixteen-year-old Aza never intended to pursue the mystery of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Russell Pickett’s son, Davis. Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts. (Mild spoilers follow) 

So, I don't know if it was just me or if the marketing campaign really screwed up, but I was definitely under the impression that this book was more of a mystery novel. It is not a mystery novel. It is not a mystery novel. IT IS NOT A MYSTERY NOVEL. Everybody all clear on that? Good. I wish the advertising for the novel had been a bit more forthcoming about the fact that this book is really about a girl with a pretty severe anxiety disorder. I was not mentally prepared for a book like that, and the longer I read, the more anxious I became. That's not to say the book is bad or anything, it's genuinely really, really good. I just think that everybody needs to know what they're getting into when they start this book. If you find yourself in need of a trigger warning before consuming potentially triggering content, this is your trigger warning.

The vast majority of Turtles All The Way Down deals with Aza and her anxiety. It's handled in a really, really realistic and respectful way. Almost too realistic. If I had to bet money, I'd bet that much of this novel is autobiographical in one way or another. While I went into this expecting a mystery novel, I really liked that I ended up getting a novel that dealt so much with anxiety. As someone with anxiety, so much of this hit home so well for me. The way Green describes invasive thoughts and anxiety spirals as this thing that you can't escape that just gets tighter and tighter as it keeps winding its way down your brain really was amazing. I've never seen that concept explained in such an accurate way before and it was such a joy to read in this novel.

His characters, as always, feel a bit... fake in that no teenager talks the way he has them talk and they always think in these pretentious philosophical ways and it always feels just a little bit off. They're well written and developed characters, but they still suffer from that factor that John Green has always been known for suffering from. One thing that's worth noting, though, is that this book very much doesn't glorify or romanticize mental illness (or any illness). That's an accusation that's been lobbed at John Green for pretty much his entire career, and I'm happy to say that it's not a problem that's in this book. Anxiety is painted in a sympathetic but ugly light. A lot of detail goes into explaining just how awful mental illness can be. Green is careful not to stigmatize or demonize mental illnesses, but he also makes sure to properly show just how awful and unappealing it is. It's definite growth in his depiction of mental illness and it's a welcome growth.

It's hard to talk about the "plot" of the novel as it really revolves around Aza coming to grips with her anxiety and how it impacts the people around her and how her life and Davis Pickett's life interacts and weaves with each other's. I thought it was paced really well. It never dragged nor did it move unrealistically quickly. Things happened at the speed they needed to happen and plenty of time was spent on things that needed time spent on them. It's a quick read; it's not a particularly long book nor is it a particularly challenging read. But it's a well-paced read. You feel satisfied with how things went by the end of the novel.

Honestly, this is probably my favorite of John Green's books. I loved The Fault in Our Stars, but he ran awfully close to romanticizing illness there and I enjoyed Paper Towns (and never understood the criticism it got for the fact that Margot was a "manic-pixie dream girl"; that was sorta the point of the book. Q had to learn to stop viewing her like that and understand that she was an actual person and not an idealized construct), while I never managed to finish Looking For Alaska and haven't looked at An Abundance of Katherines or Will Grayson, Will Grayson. Turtles All The Way Down is a surprising book. It's not a mystery novel; it's a genuinely moving look at how anxiety can impact the life of the sufferer and those who care for them. It's a sweet story about friendship and young love. It's heartbreaking and funny and entertaining and it's worth reading, especially if you or anyone you know has ever suffered from an anxiety disorder.

(4 out of 5 wands)

[sara_cat-107388 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Putting a star rating on a book that is the exact thing you didn’t know you needed feels... uncomfortable. If you feel alone with what you’re going through, if you have struggles with mental illness, this book might just be what you need, too. I don’t know if there’s anymore to say about a book that has touched me so deeply and that I imagine I’ll be returning to many times in the future.
To all who read this review, I wish you the best. DFTBA

[tonifgmamtc · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a story of a mystery, romance, and friendship that would be interesting as is, but it also includes issues about mental health. All the bits were good, and it goes a long way to showing what it feels like in someone's head with a difference they cannot control.

[sarah220-732610 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is another fabulous book from John Green. It is the story of a teenage girl struggling with anxiety/ OCD issues while trying to balance relationships and solve a mystery. The novel is at times heartbreaking and hilarious. Aza is a beautiful and flawed character that is incredibly believable and relatable. The descriptions of Aza's instrusive thoughts and compulsive actions are insightful and painful to read. "The ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts" constricted my own heart and breath as I was reading about her suffering. Green's writing, per usual, is brilliant and made all the more powerful when combined with his intense personal experiences.

[evelyn.b · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

John Green always impresses me. He was the author I read the most of in Highschool and this book brings me back to that time. A great novel that gives the reader an inside look into the struggle of OCD/Anxiety. I really enjoyed this book.

I don't think it's my favorite John Green book for the following reasons: It isn't the type of book that puts you on the edge of your seat to hear what is next. While I know typically that isn't how John Green writes, I felt like I could never get enough of The Fault in our Stars. This book was fun to read, took a little bit to get going, and ended sort of abruptly, but it still ended the best way it should have.

[drfuriosa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

That was...really good. Really really good. John Green really pulls you inside Aza's head to show how mental illness works. It feels like a fictionalized version of Roxane Gay's Hunger, in that you see someone for their raw, unpolished self. The love story was secondary to the real love between Aza and her best friend Daisy, which is really the great love we feel in our lives.

[ldvoorberg · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Fairly typical good teen fiction. Minimal parental figures but not caricatures. Teens who are more philosophical and poetical and interesting than most. Drama and intrigue, a harrowing adventure and a neat ending that is not wholly Hollywood. Og, and some mental health anxiety to make the story very trendy for today's youth.
But decent for what it is.

[readingbeader · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Aza has OCD. Real OCD. Not the kind many of us say when we say "I'm ocd about having all my book covers match, or a series must all be in the same format." When Aza's mind goes into a spiral, it's frightening. I do not have OCD, but I do have someone in my life who has dealt with it, in a milder version than Aza's. After reading this, I feel like I have a better understanding of what it must be like. It is very intense. Daisy, Aza's best friend, is me.

Favorite quote: (made me actually laugh out loud.)
"The whole problem with boys is that ninety-nine percent of them are, like, okay. If you could dress and hygiene them properly, and make them stand up straight and listen to you and not be dumbasses, they'd be totally acceptable." Daisy, page 41.