Book Review – Turtles All The Way Down

Turtles all the way down by John Green – Book Review

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Trigger warning: OCD, Anxiety

Turtles all the way down is John Greens newest YA Novel. It`s a contemporary YA novel published on the 10th of November this year (2017), So it`s quite a fresh book. Alot of people were nervous about this book or had high expectations, wondering if John Green could beat the TFIOS (The Fault In Our Stars) hype. But so far it`s a very liked book! It`s rated 4.22 out of 5 stars on GoodReads.

I didn`t really like TFIOS that much, at least not compared to some of his other books. I`ve read all of John Greens books so naturally I was very excited to find out he was finally going to put out a new one, but I have realised the books of his that I love the most are the ones that are the least popular/spoken about. This book seemed to become a hit very quickly, and in my case that could mean both something good and bad. But I got very excited when I read what the book would be about, it seemed like it would be a bit different from his other work, and it`s always interesting to see how authors grow and if it`s succesfull.

Turtles all the way down focuses mostly on mental health and the main persons expiriences with life and relationships while being mentally ill. So trigger warning for both OCD and anxiety in this book (and review). John Green does have OCD himself, so this book is written from a perspective of someone who can relate to it alot. The story is even set in his own home town (Indianapolis, Indiana). I think if you can relate to the book you`ll like it more than if you can`t. However, as someone who can relate to the anxiety aspect to it I`d still recommend it to people who can`t relate, because hopefully they can get better sense of what it`s like. What it`s like when it feels like your own brain and body is your enemy, and you might not even know why.
I have both things I like and don`t like about this book, but I thought I write a little bit more about what it`s about before I share my opinions.

The synopsis reads as followed:

Sixteen-year-old Aza never intended to pursue the mystery of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there`s a hundrer-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 seperate 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.

When I first read what the book was about I felt like they`d made the investigation part seem very central to the story, which I wasn`t as keen on compared to the mental health part. But when I read it I was not disappointed in that department. The plot in this story is quite vague, it does happen alot but it mostly focuses on Aza`s troubles with herself and everything around her.

In my own words I`d say it`s a story about Aza trying to tackle herself and life in general with OCD and anxiety pulsating through her. Aza feels like her life isn`t really her own, that she`s not the author of her own story. She gets trapped in these thoughts spirals she`s unable to stop, thoughts telling her she has to do this and that, even though she really don`t need to or even should. Her biggest fear is probably getting C.Diff, a seriously bad bacterial infection. She doesn`t feel like her body is hers either, because of the microorganisms and bacteria living inside of her. She, as alot of others, also doesn`t really feel like anyone understands her struggles.
Other characters in the book we read quite a bit about is Aza`s mom, her best friend Daisy and “the billionaire gone missing” son Davis. Aza`s mom is mostly just a worried mom, wanting her daughter to get better. Her best friend Daisy is an eccentric girl who writes star wars fan fiction online and works (or used to) at the local chucky cheese. And Davis is a guy super obsessed with stars and constellations, and who writes poetry and blog posts online. Davis also has the responsibility of trying to take care of his little brother, because their father has gone missing.
We read about how Daisy views her friendship with Aza (while she`s sick), how Aza deals with slightly crushing on Davis (while she`s sick), and also Aza`s greates love: the car she got from her father.
Aza`s father is also the reason why she knows who Davis is…

(Sorry if my description is confusing, I tried keeping some of the mystery alive).

Now to my likes and dislikes.
I almost always enjoy a book about mental health, and this one is no exception. It portrayed it nicely and I thought Aza`s thought spirals were written in a very good way, it was easy to understand how her head worked it`s ways down the spiral.
What I always like in John Greens writing is his metaphors and use of quotes. I`m very into “poetic” work, and even tho John Green writes YA contemporaries, I feel like he always gets in some type poetic vibes. In this book he even had a character (Davis) who read alot of poems himself, and tried to write some. So I really enjoyed Davis as a character, both he and Aza had alot of nice metaphors about the sky when they looked at the stars toghether. However, a character I did not like as much was Daisy. To me she was a little too much and too into herself. I felt like she had too much negativity towards Aza`s OCD and axiety. And even though some of it probably is very relatable and slightly true, I just thougth she was a bit too harsh. It did get the the story and plot moving, but personally it just made me not like her so much, her understanding of her friend was just a little too low for me.
A thing that is very nice about John Greens writing, that I`ve also heard other readers say, is that he doesn`t dumb it down. He writes YA novels that are written in a very nice and flowy way to read, quite easy. But when he writes about his characters or part of the plot, like Aza and C.Diff, he doesn`t write it in a easier way so that “teenage brains” will understand. Teenage brains understand more grown language, and John Green realises that, which feels really nice.
What I did not enjoy as much about this book was that it just didn`t do much for me. It was an okay book, not bad at all, but I didn`t get very excited about reading. I just felt like I read it, and that was that. Which is why I find it quite hard to review it. I thought the investigation part of it was a little odd, it wasn`t very significant in the story. It was brought up a couple times, but was just too much in the middle between meaning something in the story and not. But as I said earlier the plot is quite vague, because it`s mostly about Aza`s health, and that was something I enjoyed.
I both liked and disliked the ending of the book. It did have a nice ending, and is actually one of the few books I`ve read where it`s very easy to choose your own, it`s quite open, at least romantically. I did however think it came a little too fast. A plot twist appeared and after it quite a sudden ending. The plot twist was unexpected and led to very great things for Aza, but when it came to her health I just felt like it suddenly got better without us really knowing what had happened. And then suddenly it wasn`t getting better. And I do realise that`s how mental health works, and there was a specific part I liked, but in general I just wanted it more detailed. However one of my favorite things/metaphors in the book happened at the ending. And there was something that didn’t happen that I really wanted to happen that was really easy to imagine with the ending of this book, hence the reason why I said it was a book with a kind of “choose yourself” ending. It just seems like the whole book had it`s ups and downs for me. Which is probably why I didn`t dislike the book, but not really liked it either.

I would still recommend the book, it is definitely worth the read because of how it portrays mental health, and let`s be honest, because it`s John Green. I just think the plot in it is not very significant, whereas her health and relationships are. My favorite parts of the book were probably when she spoke to Davis, because I really liked his character. But I did also like how her mother was portrayed. She was very relevant to how a parent probably would feel in a situation like theirs, and she did alot of good things. There was this one specific part where Aza and her mother spoke about anxiety that I really liked, it was very relatable. I feel like it could fit me and my mom perfectly.
All the metaphors is also a plus, but John Green is always good with those.
I gave the book 3 out of 5 stars, because it was just such a “book in the middle” for me.
Alot of readers have said that this is their favorite YA novel when it comes to portraying mental health. And while I do think this one was very good at that, I would also recommend readin “Am I normal yet?” by Holly Bourne, which is also a story about a girl with OCD.

Anyways, here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:
(there were too many good ones to only choose a few)

“We always say we are beneath the stars. We aren’t, of course—there is no up or down, and anyway the stars surround us. But we say we are beneath them, which is nice. So often English glorifies the human—we are whos, other animals are that—but English puts us beneath the stars, at least.” 

“We never really 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 even more intimate than eye contact anyway. I mean, anybody can look at you. It’s quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see.” 

“…no one ever says good-bye unless they want to see you again.” 

“True terror isn’t being scared; it’s not having a choice on the matter.”

“What I love about science is that as you learn, you don’t really get answers. You just get better questions.” 

“Actually, the problem is that I can’t lose my mind,” I said. “It’s inescapable.” 

“I was so good at being a kid, and so terrible at being whatever I was now.”

“One of the challenges with pain–physical or psychic–is that we can really only approach it through metaphor. It can’t be represented the way table or a body can. In some ways, pain is the opposite of language.”

Here`s a few I feel like describe the book very well:

“I couldn’t make myself happy, but I could make people around me miserable.”

“You just, like, hate yourself? You hate being yourself?”
“There’s no self to hate. It’s like, when I look into myself, there’s no actual me—just a bunch of thoughts and behaviors and circumstances. And a lot of them just don’t feel like they’re mine. They’re not things I want to think or do or whatever. And when I do look for the, like, Real Me, I never find it. It’s like those nesting dolls, you know? The ones that are hollow, and then when you open them up, there’s a smaller doll inside, and you keep opening hollow dolls until eventually you get to the smallest one, and it’s solid all the way through. But with me, I don’t think there is one that is solid. They just keep getting smaller.” 

“It’s turtles all the way fucking down, Holmesy. You’re trying to find the turtle at the bottom of the pile, but that’s not how it works.” 

And lastly, my favorite one of all:

“Every loss is unprecedented. You can’t ever know someone else’s hurt, not really – just like touching someone else’s body isn’t the same as having someone else’s body” 

Thank you so so much for dropping by and taking time out of your day to read my review! It means alot 🙂
You`re always welcome back, I hope I get to see you again 🙂