Turtles All the Way Down

This was fantastic. Just read it.

This is a spoiler-free review
Read on In The Sheets

Turtles All The Way Down is the latest YA Contemporary from best selling author, John Green. While John has written many critically acclaimed books, from Paper Towns to The Fault in Our Stars, this is the first opportunity I've personally had to dive into one, and wasn't totally sure what to expect.

All I knew going into Turtles was that it followed a young girl and her friend pursuing the mystery of a fugitive billionaire. While that is a subplot of the book, a more accurate description would be a young girl pursuing the mystery of herself.

Turtles All the Way Down is the story of Aza, a sixteen year old girl struggling to cope with her anxiety and learning to live with mental illness. It's a very real depiction of what it's like to live with anxiety, or at least, I imagine it's a very real depiction. While I'm fortunate enough to not have anxiety or mental illness, I'm happy that this representation exists for those that do, and am also happy that it will help many others like myself, to understand it better.

I'm glad I was able to experience this book, it's something I'll take with me through life and learn from. It was incredibly eye opening to see into the mind of someone living with anxiety and the daily struggles they face while trying to live a “normal” life, do “normal people” things and just be happy.

I may give out a lot of 5 star reviews, but never as there been an easier book to rate.

Turtles All The Way Down should be mandatory reading for anyone dealing with mental illness themselves, who may have a loved one who's struggling, or are just human being. Buy this book.

I read John Green five years ago and I can see myself reading John Green five years from now. I do not know if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

“My whole life I thought I was the star of an overly earnest romantic movie, and it turns out I was in a goddamned buddy comedy all along.”Fans of [b:The Fault in Our Stars 11870085 The Fault in Our Stars John Green https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1360206420s/11870085.jpg 16827462] looking for another star-crossed love story will be disappointed, but readers who can deal with a very uncomfortable look into the mind of a teen with a serious anxiety disorder/OCD and the impact that mental illness can have on a lifelong friendship will find Turtles All the Way Down very rewarding. I'm sure there will be literally millions of reviews of this book on GR soon, and I'm sure this one will be overlooked for its lack of GIFs and squee-ing, but I will just say that I am very glad I didn't pass on this book when it was offered to me. For teens (or anyone) suffering from mental illness, the message is that it does get better (without necessarily being “cured”) and that life does go on as we muddle through the best we can.

As a person who has suffered from a anxiety disorders for the majority of my life, I have very rarely seen mental health issues depicted well in literature that I've read. In this book, John Green does a great job of showing the intrusive thoughts, thought spirals, and other aspects of mental health issues that have plagued me for over 2 decades. Add the quality of the depiction of mental health with the generally damn fine writing and plotting and you end up with a book that lives up to some pretty high expectations.

I just love John Green and he can largely do no wrong, so of course I thought this was delightful. Read it in 4 hours as soon as it was finally delivered to me on release day. I think part of my affection is that I also watch his vlogs and listen to his podcast with Hank, so there's all these little things he's mentioned over the years and it's so fun to see them pop up in a book!

As a fairly well-read person, I think this handled mental illness in a way I haven't seen before, and a way that is wonderful and needed. As someone who has struggled with some anxiety and intrusive thoughts, it was comforting and even exciting to see some of my dark places described so well. YES! That fear I've only named to my husband and mental health counselor is real and in this book and I'm not alone!