Review: Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

Aza is attempting to navigate the minefield that is life with an added complication, a tendency for her mind to work against her. Aza’s thoughts are home to a frightfully constant spiral of negative thoughts, which she cannot silence or escape. These are the thoughts which impede her relationships, cause her anxiety to flare, and which make seemingly easy tasks and situations insurmountable.

Despite the niggling negativities in her head, Aza and her best friend Daisy involve themselves in the disappearance of Davis Pickett’s dad, a corporate man on the run from fraud allegations. While they attempt to discover his whereabouts, Aza feels herself drawn to Davis, and the beginnings of love.

Turtles All the Way Down is uniquely moving experience – simultaneously filled with despair, hope, and love, it chronicles the voice of Aza’s greatest enemy – her own mind. Through careful explanations of the compulsive behavior and thoughts that invade her daily life, to the painful attempts of those she loves to understand her suffering, this is a story you can’t help but love.

The youthful banter does not seem forced with pepperings of outdated slang or tiring references to popular culture and sex, as can often happen in YA novels. John Green brings to life characters which are real, relatable, and human. They have faults, their lives can be both mundane and messy, and ultimately, they are all the more loveable for that.

There are often attempts by contemporary authors to document the minefield that is mental illness. However, these attempts are darkened and cheapened by the ‘and they all live happily ever after’ conclusion; mental illness that is suddenly cured, while the protagonist goes on to live a ‘normal’ life. Not so with John Green. Both melancholic and refreshing, Aza is not ‘cured’ come the final pages of her story, she is the same person with a mess of thoughts wriggling in her brain, only she’s learned to accept that it is her mess, and she needs to try live with herself, and not fall victim to herself. This is remarkably moving, and inspiring, and honest – a combination which guarantees warm hearts and wet eyes. Delve into unknown depths with this book, and to adore every sentence.

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green is published by Penguin Random House.