I was excited when I first heard about John Green’s new book Turtles All the Way Down. Like many others, I fell in love with Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars, and was hoping for another phenomenal (and heart-wrenching) story to add to the collection. To summarize briefly, Turtles All the Way Down is about sixteen-year-old Aza Holmes who, along with her best friend Daisy, decides to hunt down a fugitive billionaire named Russel Pickett for a $100,000 reward. Along the way, we witness Aza’s ups and downs in dealing with her mental illness, maintaining friendships, and first attempts at love.
Ultimately, I enjoyed the book and believe it stands strong in the YA novel genre, but it was not as memorable as his previous books. Here are some thoughts on what I felt was done well and what made it fall short compared to his previous novels.
The Good: A Strong Contender in YA Novels
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Depiction of Mental Illness
- Though not explicitly stated, we can assume that Aza Holmes has obsessive compulsive disorder from her behavior and John Green’s own statements about the book. I felt this book was informative in terms of getting its readers to understand what it must be like to have OCD. Aza’s repetitive thoughts telling her to do certain things are constant, and you realize she herself can’t decipher which thoughts are her own and which are the ‘disorder’s.’ How does one fight their own thoughts?
- I felt this book helped me gain a new understanding of OCD, and be more understanding of the fact that everyone has things going on in their heads that they don’t necessarily always voice. We don’t always know what others are going through.
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Depiction of Being a Teenage
- John Green pins down perfectly what it’s like to be an insecure teenager. Aza tries her best not to disappoint her mom, her friends, her teachers, and yet, she’s 100% aware of and critical of her own downfalls when she’s unable to be what she thinks she should be to these people in her life. It’s painful, but so relatable to read her experiences—I kept wishing I could tell her that it’s all okay, that she can forgive herself, that she doesn’t have to keep pushing herself. But of course, sometimes that’s just how it’s like to be in high school, and feel insecure, and John Green portrays that phase of Aza’s life amazingly.
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One Liner’s
- “You’re a we. You’re a you. You’re a she, an it, a they. My kingdom for an I.”
- “It’s quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see.”
- “As I stood underneath the water, I wondered what I’d worship as I got older, and how that would end up bending the arc of my life this way or that. I was still at the beginning. I could still be anybody.”
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The Ending
- The ending with Aza and Davis was heartbreaking, sentimental, and beautiful. Their goodbye, when they laid on the grass staring at the stars together (I know, a little cheesy), was both a present experience and a memory. It encapsulated the idea of growing out of who you once were, and looking back fondly on meaningful memories that felt so real and impactful at a time when you were someone else.
The Bad: Unmemorable Compared to Older Novels
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Undeveloped Plot
- The point of the book is that we are to stay in Aza’s mind to understand her experience, and thus there is supposed to be less of a plot or awareness of the real world—Aza doesn’t really live in the real world. I know this is a plot device, so maybe it’s just my own personal preference, but I felt less connected to the book because of this. Because the focus was mainly on Aza’s mental state, it made me wonder why this strange billionaire fugitive plot existed, if it were just randomly chosen or if there’s supposed to be some symbolic meaning like there often is in John Green books.
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Unrealistic Dialogue & Narration
- John Green books are often criticized for being pretentious and not accurately depicting how teenagers talk. I was especially aware of this in Turtles All the Way Down—there were times when I’d cringe at how philosophical or overplayed a theme was. Because I watch Green’s Youtube channel, I’m aware of the way he talks and there were times in the book when I didn’t feel like the characters were talking, but John Green was talking.
- For instance, Aza says to her therapist, “I guess I just don’t like having to live inside of a body? If that makes sense. And I think maybe deep down I am just an instrument that exists to turn oxygen into carbon dioxide, just like merely an organism in this… vastness.” This is such a John Green thing to say, and I wish he’d phrase it differently to fit how an actual teenager would talk—no, I’m not saying teenagers are stupid or can’t have deep thoughts, but I just don’t think anyone speaks like that but authors and English majors.
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Undeveloped Characters
- For me, the biggest let down of the book was the lack of development in the characters. Again, the purpose of the book was that we were to know only Aza’s point of view, and thus a very narrow one because Aza doesn’t notice many things in the lives of others. This is why we don’t know much about Daisy or Davis. Yet, I still wish I learned more about them. One of John Green’s specialties is to make characters that the readers get to know really well. In Looking for Alaska, I knew Pudge and Alaska like the back of my hand. In The Fault in Our Stars, I knew Augustus and Hazel’s personalities and how they meshed together, and believed in their love so deeply. Yet, I don’t know if I ever knew Davis as more than surface level. His motivations, quirks, personality—they were blurred at best. Sometimes, he seemed like a mirror of Aza, speaking just as philosophically and John Green-like that the dynamic felt unrealistic.
Concluding Thoughts:
I enjoyed Turtles All the Way Down as much as I’d enjoy other YA novels—I laughed a bit, cried a bit, but when I finished it, I felt like I could easily forget it. There were too many themes ranging from mental illness, death, love, past, and growing up, and not enough focus or depth into a single theme to feel impactful. This is the type of book where I felt there was potential, but I just wish there was more. I wish I could have gotten to known everyone more.