Turtles All the Way Down

Confession time: I was a John Green fan girl at some point in my life. One of my most vivid memories of the home I grew up in is laying on the porch swing on the screened in side of the porch in a hugely oversized orange hoodie late, late at night sobbing my eyes out to TFIOS for the 77th time. I also gifted copies of Looking For Alaska to everyone that I could rope into a conversation about my favorite book. Moral of this story is of course I had to read Turtles All The Way Down.

This book is uncomfortable. One of the most uncomfortable books I've read. And because of that, my review is so mixed, my feelings are so mixed. So for you, dear reader, and myself, I'm making a list and not checking it even once. I'm just writing it and releasing it into the wild. Here we go.

Pros: Amazing mental illness representation, specifically OCD and anxiety disorders. The protagonist suffers from these and that's part of what makes this book so uncomfortable, tbh. I'm not saying that because I'm uncomfortable reading about mental illness, quite the opposite. My husband struggles with OCD, thankfully not as advanced as Aza's. We both have anxiety disorders and depression. I'm not unfamiliar with mental illness. It's uncomfortable because it's real and it's triggering. But it's amazing, accurate representation that is so needed, which leads us to pro number two.

A realistic ending. No one saves anyone in this book. No one has the perfect happy ending. Loose ends are not tied up. Aza isn't normal and never will be. She isn't magically cured. Because that's not how life works. And that's something I personally enjoy now and then in a fiction. Happy endings get old sometimes. This is a pro on my personal list, but I understand some people would not love this.

Moving on.


Cons: Terrible plot. I did not at any point understand or enjoy the storyline. I feel like Green wanted to write a book about a girl with OCD (for which I applaud him) but he had no storyline so he just threw in a disappearance and sprinkled in some romance here and there. It was honestly super super boring and highly predictable. It also kind of made no sense whatsoever.

Also, every character other than Aza felt so flat and one dimensional that I was so disappointed. Who are these people and why should I care about them or Aza's relationship with them? The world shall never know. This is not what I was expecting from a John Green novel. But again, it felt like he had a prerogative here and everything else just kind of fell by the wayside.
I'm sure I could ramble on some more but I just don't want to. The storyline was boring and since that's the core of a novel, my cons list is done here.


Would I read it again? No. The only reason I gave it three stars is the mental illness rep.

Would I recommend this book?
Probably not. And trigger warning for OCD and anxiety. I guess read it if you want to feel represented? But seek out other options first. Sorry this is harsh!!! I hate being mean but I'm so disappointed tbh.

I had only read one John Green novel prior to this one, and though I didn't like that work (Paper Towns), I have since become a fan of the author as a person and a personality. I decided to read this book after subscribing to his superb podcast and after hearing his excellent interview with Terry Gross. The dominant topic of conversation in that interview was anxiety, both this book's protagonist's and Green's own, and I believe that the book is worth reading for Green's treatment of this subject alone. I didn't love this book, but I know that I would have loved it had I read it in middle school, and that's enough to earn it five stars from me.

By far the most intriguing and relatable book I've ever read.

This is such an intense book. It's heavy. You're inside the mind of a person with OCD, bombarded with intrusive thoughts, and it's so real. John Green is writing about what he knows, and it shows. The story in itself is good, but mental illness is the main player in this one.

this book made me anxious but it's a great portrayal of anxiety
i think this book feels a little unfinished because it sets up a bunch of threads at the beginning but only follows through on like,,, one of them, so that was disappointing
it's a very ‘real' book

Aza and her friend Daisy decide to try to solve the mystery of the disappearance of billionaire Russell Pickett in order to obtain the $100,000 reward. In the process, Aza reconnects with Pickett's son, Davis, who she met as a child after both she and Davis lost parents. Aza is under the care of a psychiatrist for spiraling thoughts, and the relationship she develops with Davis as well as the relationship she has with her long time friend, Daisy, are precarious.

This is my third John Green book, so I can say with confidence that it is a strong John Green novel.

I picked this book up after a very long time. The first chapters were hard for me to get through, that's why I stopped reading the book for a long time, but after I picked it up yesterday, I read it in almost one sitting. What an amazing book after all!

I was so down for the whole tuatara subplot and that a whole bunch of teenagers now know what a tuatara is.

The friendship between Aza and Daisy is so realistic and nice to see in a YA book. I found Daisy to be such a consistent and detailed character that I felt like I actually knew her. Aza could have used some more distinguishing characteristics that weren't about her dad, car, or mental health.

The OCD representation is perfect. It's perfect. The ending was so good, and I'm very happy John Green didn't try to wrap up everything and make Aza seem like she was suddenly so much better. It really sends home the message that you aren't able to easily overcome intrusive thoughts with OCD.

The general plot involving the dad fell short for me. I think it's unlikely that the guy would've stayed in a tunnel while freezing to death, given he wasn't homeless and had a crap load of money. However, I completely disagree with people who give the book poor ratings because of this plot (and its lack of development). This the the side plot that gets our characters in certain situations, but the main plot is about Aza's journey with her mental health. That plot doesn't have a uber satisfyingly happy ending because that isn't a reality for people with OCD.

I know a lot of people don't like John Green because unrealistic teenage dialogue blah blah, similar themes in all his stories yada yada, but WHATEVER, I LIKE HIM. I like him a lot, and I liked Turtles All The Way Down a lot, though I'm gonna put a couple warnings on this:

• Trigger warning: the main character, Aza, struggles with anxiety, spiraling thoughts and hypochondria, and there are descriptions of self-harm.
• I am a mild hypochondriac - I often worry that I might catch some weird and rare thing, but I have never gone to the doctor actually thinking I've caught something weird and rare, and I don't deal with it all the time. It doesn't consume my life. If your hypochondria consumes your life at all, I don't know that I'd recommend this book. Aza is fixated on an illness (which I have not looked up because I am banned from WebMD, and therefore I do not know if it is real or fictitious) and she thinks about it ALL THE TIME. Everything ends up spiraling back to this illness that she's worried she will contract. If this seems like it would be anxiety-producing for you, proceed at your own risk.
• This book was very good at describing anxiety. There were a few times that I started to feel anxious listening to Aza's anxiety, and needed to check myself to make sure I was okay to continue. Take care of yourself.

And despite all that, I liked Aza a lot and I could relate to not being able to choose your own thoughts when you're in the middle of an anxious episode. I liked her relationships with her best friend, Daisy, and the guy she kinda-likes-kinda-dates, Davis, and his little brother. I liked that in those relationships she was not willing to overpromise or overcommit (both things Teenage Allie failed at miserably), but that they all still dealt with real things like loss and jealousy and loneliness.

Audio was excellent, with distinct characterizations of the three main characters.

A witty, snappy, touching adolescent book about friendship, first love, parents and anxiety disorder

I thought this book was fantastic. The subject was dealt with so rawly and honestly and realistically. Pretty much every aspect of this book was perfect; except one. I thought the character of Daisy was round every once in a while, but most of the time, she felt like a typical paper John Green character. But, I still did enjoy her role in the book when she felt like a real character, like when she was talking to Aza in the car. The romance was very engaging and felt so real to me and I felt everything Aza felt while she was with him; excited, terrified, anxious. Aza was definitely John Green's best character in any of his writing so far; I felt connected to her on such an intense level.

I liked this book, but it was hard to read, or in my case, listen to, at times. Hearing Aza's racing, obsessive compulsive thoughts, especially surrounding the cut on her finger that she keeps reopening and sanitizing constantly, made me very squeamish. But I assume that was intentional and that part of the point of this book is to help people who don't deal with this type of thing to understand a little bit about what it might be like to be someone who does struggle with that type a thing...

Overall, I enjoyed the story, and I liked the ending, but I highly doubt I will choose to read this one again.

Aza tidak pernah bermimpi akan terlibat pengejaran seorang milyarder berhadiah seratus ribu dolar. Ini semua gara-gara Daisy, sahabatnya yang tidak kenal takut. Berdua, mereka mendekati Davis, putra sang milyarder. Aza berusaha keras menjadi gadis baik-baik, sahabat dan detektif yang baik, karena dia tidak ingin mengecewakan orang-orang terdekatnya. Namun, menjalani hidup saja sudah cukup sulit bagi Aza, karena setiap saat dia harus menghadapi satu musuh besar: benaknya sendiri.
Pola berulang om John, cowok culun & cewek gaul, mulai berubah di The Fault on Our Stars, dan anehnya aku justru suka buku terakhir itu disbanding buku2 sebelumnya, An Abundance of Catherine, Paper Towns & Looking For Alaska. Turtles All The Way Down ini juga menceritakan hal yg baru gk terjebak di pola sebelumnya. AKu cukup menikmati buku ini sih.
Yang aku suka adalah dialog2 khas anak remaja dapat banget Om Green ini kalau bercerita. Kadang ada hal2 yg membuat tersenyum diantara dialog2 tersebut. Overall buku ini cukup kunikmati.

Absolutely read this book. The characters are so real that you know them. You feel them. It is full of doubt and pain and wonder and hope. Life: it goes on.

2.5—From where I sit, the primary accomplishment of Turtles All the Way Down is its depiction of mental illness. John Green doesn't romanticize mental illness. Turtles All the Way Down is a book about how mental illness sucks.

Living with mental illness is hard. Living with and caring about those living with mental illness is also hard. I like how Green writes characters that try and fail to understand what life is like for Aza. I like that those characters support Aza anyway. I also like that their support and concern does not cure Aza.

Mental illness is trivialized and stigmatized. For example, people dealing with anxiety might be pressured to “push through” their symptoms to make others happy, to show “how much they really care.” People say you shouldn't let mental illness control or confine you, that at the end of the day, your life is what you choose to make of it. These sentiments might seem encouraging, but at their core serve only to invalidate and shame people struggling with their health.

Aza sees how her illness impacts her relationships. She wants to change, to be able to stop, to be able to not. But you can't will your symptoms away. And in moments where Aza works to be better to family and friends, Green takes care not to paint her efforts as some volitional conquest of her ever spiraling inner monologue. I appreciated that.

The rest of the book...well, I'll be honest, I'm not sure how much substance there is outside of that. The few plot points that were there are pretty ridiculous, especially in retrospect.

It's a John Green book, and the more books of his I read, the more I feel like when you've read one, you've read them all. My main takeaway was an interpretation of mental illness and specifically anxiety that was, for me, uncomfortably accurate.

So, I have OCD. I was diagnosed many years ago, after several years of suffering in shame and confusion, and it feels both (1) integral to my identity and (2) completely foreign from the “real” me. This book was actually recommended to me by my Expensive Professional OCD Whisperer (i.e. therapist), and - indeed - I was perversely THRILLED to learn that John Green - someone I've admired for many years - also suffers from OCD, and has it pretty bad, and still manages to produce such amazing work (Crash Course! famous books!). You go, John! My OCD is generally something I'm cagey and shy about - but if John Green can be open about it, and if Andrew Gelman can be open about his Tourette's, then I know I also shouldn't be embarrassed. (Still, it's so embarrassing...)

Also, I used to write moderately popular Star Wars fanfic.

All this to say that I felt a special kinship to this book, about a teenage girl suffering from some pretty bad OCD and her Star Wars fanfic-obsessed best friend.

First, I feel an enormous affection and gratitude for ANY cultural depiction of OCD that is vaguely accurate (hell, I even feel affection for the inaccurate portrayals, like As Good As It Gets or Monk). As Saul Tigh would say, “It's good to be seen.”

This book offered, indeed, a VERY accurate portrayal - while the details of any OCD sufferer's obsessions and compulsions are unique to them, the nature of the disease is very predictable. The “meta-thoughts” are boringly standard.

I loved how Aza, the protagonist, acknowledged the existential doubt that having OCD gives you - OCD is egodystonic, meaning it feels foreign, you feel “not like yourself” when you're deep in it. This raises all sorts of difficulties though: Why should it take so much work to “feel like yourself”, if your “natural” thoughts keep getting eaten by the OCD monster? Why does it feel like OCD is a separate entity living in your brain, something you have to outwit and bargain with and avoid and so on? Who's the true self in there?

I would hazard that ALL OCD sufferers absolutely loathe their OCD: they hate the intrusive, distressing thoughts, but they also hate what it turns them into - self-involved to the point of neglecting everything and everyone else around you. It can kinda turn you into a selfish asshole. I loved that John Green, speaking through Aza, acknowledges the bullshit of calling these mental illnesses “superpowers” - or the common cultural narrative of madness being akin to genius (Monk!). Oh, please. All this shit does is distract you by idiotic fears and then you get bad grades or forget your loved one's birthday, BELIEVE ME.

At the same time, this book actually helped me have MUCH better insight into the frustration of DEALING with someone with OCD. Every loved one who's had to deal with my OCD on a regular basis has, eventually, become incredibly frustrated and kind of thrown up their hands. Indeed, I lost patience with Aza immediately (sorry, Aza). When the sufferer's fears are so clearly absurd to you (Aza, for example, worries chronically that she'll catch a deadly bacterial infection), you quickly lose patience. “Omg this again?! JUST STOP.” Naturally, the sufferer is JUST AS frustrated, JUST AS out of patience, and is ALSO begging their brain to “JUST STOP” - but they can't. Anyway, this was helpful to feel - it gave me a lot of sympathy (and awe!) for people who love someone with OCD. Cuz it's hard! What a pain in the ass! This was handled very well in the book - e.g. Aza's best friend, Daisy, and her fanfic as an outlet.

Okay, anyway. This book is ALSO about a disappearance mystery (which feels totally unnecessary) and a teen romance. It's set in present day Indianapolis, and features John Green's habitually overwritten teenagers. It has waaaay too many references to high poetry and fine literature. Are all of these people reading Yeats?! Who ARE these people!? The tone is very one-note. Everyone is basically a mini John Green.

So that's just okay. But you still gobble the book down. Like The Fault in Our Stars, there's one (kinda gimmicky) hook - there, cancer; here, OCD - that keeps you reading. But remove the Horrible Illness, and you're left with kids that are, oof, pretty insufferable. I definitely liked, on a “hey we should be friends!” level, Starr from The Hate U Give more. I definitely like-hated, on a “omg hilariously awful teens from hell!”, the kids from MT Anderson's books more.

Henyway. So it's an okay book, with a heart - nay, a nutty imprisoned brain - of SPARKLY GOLD. I certainly wish I had found this when I was an obsession-addled teen, and I think John Green has, indeed, done something important by potentially offering succor and understanding to (quick google) ~2.3% people out there.

I do love John Green books, I really do.

This was....a bit different. He wrote Aza's mental health issues so realistically that at times I had to put the book down and breathe. I felt.....claustrophobic. I felt like I was trapped in her head and I needed a break. Which then made me feel even worse because I could take a break from those thoughts. People suffering from this level of ocd can't and it broke my heart. Even now, sitting here I feel my chest tighten.

It took me a bit longer to get into this story than a typical John Green novel. However, he beautifully narrates what it is like to live with an anxiety disorder. A much needed addition to YA lit.

2.5 stars

I see the value of this, I understand how people can like it, but it just isn't for me.

This really is a powerful book and it believe it is a good thing it exists, but gosh the writing doesn't work for me. And the dialogue seems so stilted and mechanical, it was bizarre. I kept feeling so pulled out of the book. Usually when I read a book I feel connected and within the story, if you will, but this one I was pretty cognizant that I was reading a book– words on a page. So, I couldn't feel the emotions I just knew a character was processing them... it was a really weird feeling.

The story was interesting, but the mystery isn't the main focus, but rather the character development, leaving the mystery (or the part I was most interested in) in the background to call upon when needed. Yet, it was interesting to see where the story was going to go, what would happen with them and how they would grow.

So, definitely one I'll recommend to teens wanting some contemporary. I will try another John Green book, but my hopes aren't high.

I'm going to start with a trigger warning: OCD, Anxiety, Intrusive thoughts. 
I'm making sure to put this trigger warning out there because this book triggered me. I have read numerous books that contain trigger warnings for all kinds of different topics and have never experienced being triggered by a book until now. I knew what this book was about, and I had seen others trigger warnings concerning the topic, but I didn't think much of it. That being said, this book sent me into an anxiety attack due to an anxiety attack Aza experienced so I would highly encourage you to take this trigger warnings seriously. 

That being said, I did really enjoy this book. The fact that I was triggered by it made me feel that the writing was strong and accurate. I loved the way John Green handled mental illness in this book and the way it was raw and real, rather than sugar coated. I decided on a 4 star review because I felt like the missing billionaire plot line was unnecessary, secondary, and often times felt like it was ignored or glossed over. (I know I am not the only one who feels this way either.) Overall I really enjoyed this book. I think it is a very important book that provides an accurate and realistic look at mental illness as well as the way that relationships with people who have a mental illness are not always easy. I think this book could have stood on it's own without the promise of a mystery, because I do not feel like it delivered on that aspect. As a book on mental illness however this book shined. John Green continues to impress me with his novels and Turtles All The Way Down is no different.

The description of mental illness got to me.
The side plot, however, did not.

Good. Not as good as The Fault in Our Stars.

Great book about mental illness

This is the most intense John Green book I have ever read - not in any sort of action-oriented way but mentally and emotionally. This is easily my 1st or 2nd favorite John Green book, and though there was almost no action in it, the story kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time.

3.5/5