Turtles All The Way Down by John Green Review

Title: Turtles All the Way Down

Author: John Green

Age Group: Teen/Young Adult

Genre: Contemporary Fiction/Mystery

Series: Standalone

Star Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

I borrowed this book from my local library and reviewed it.

John Green is a household name, a bestselling sensation, in the United States and around the world. For me, personally, I read one of his first novels, Looking for Alaska, and fell in love. It remains on my bookshelf to this day. I read The Fault in Our Stars, and ever since, I’ve been waiting with bated breath for his latest. His first novel in five years, Turtles All The Way Down tells the story of Aza Holmes, a young woman whose life is bogged down by crippling, debilitating anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. When her best friend, Daisy, catches wind of a billionaire on the run, she is soon roped into an intriguing, race against the clock mystery. And the reward? A whopping hundred thousand dollars. In the process, Aza reconnects with a childhood friend, the son of aforementioned billionaire fugitive, Davis Pickett. As she navigates her mental illness, she is also trying to be a good daughter, friend, student, and amateur sleuth. This book was tender, beautiful, heartbreaking, and laugh out loud funny. One of my favorite books of 2017, it explores friendship, resilience, and what it means to be yourself, even if you happen to feel like you’re imprisoned in your own head. With his usual panache and gentle humor, John Green gets personal in this book; he himself suffers from OCD and wanted to show readers what it is like.

  I’ll admit, first of all, that I was really nervous, to begin with. After all, it’s been five years since John Green’s prose swept the world over, and I was very anxious to get my hands on it, so when I got it from my local library, I was excited and anxious all at once. But I tried to put my reservations aside because this was John Green, and as soon as I got wind of the publication of Turtles All The Way Down, I reserved it at the library. And I wasn’t disappointed. This book offers a poignant, bittersweet look on Aza and her coming of age story. She was a sympathetic, complex main character that had me laughing and crying in droves. Her tentative relationship with Davis made my heart ache. And Daisy… Daisy. I’ve never had such mixed feelings about a character, and that’s saying something. The pacing was breakneck, and as I followed Aza on her ill-fated journey toward more money than she’s ever seen, I couldn’t put it down. Even when I did, Aza worked her way into my mind and heart, and I will never forget her. Usually, books about mental illness make me nervous, because it can be handled wrong. But John Green didn’t just write a wonderful book; this is quite possibly a hit right out of the park. This is my second favorite book of Green’s, and I absolutely cannot wait for more! The bottom line: With beautiful prose, tender, poignant moments, an ill-fated romance with a mystery at the center, I loved Turtles All The Way Down! Next on deck: The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic by Leigh Bardugo!