"But you don't understand, sir. It's turtles all the way down."Turtles All the Way Down has probably been one of the most hotly-anticipated books of the season, because it answers the question, "What on earth has John Green been writing since The Fault In Our Stars came out five years ago?" I didn't read TFIOS, because I refuse to read a book that's set up primarily to pull at readers' heartstrings. But a few early reviews for Turtles came out from friends saying that it was different, so I gave it a go.
John Green specializes in teenaged narrators who are much "deeper" than most teenagers typically are. #notallteenagers In this case, the narrator is Aza, who has an anxiety disorder that's paired with compulsions--I wouldn't go so far as to say she has OCD, but she definitely has some compulsions that are centered around germs, particularly gut bacteria. She suffers from invasive thoughts that she can't control and can't get away from, and gets stuck in what she calls "thought spirals" where the thoughts just chase each other around inescapably and completely take over her existence when they occur. I think this happens to everyone occasionally, particularly when something is going wrong in life, but Aza suffers from it on pretty much a daily basis. She has medication that she takes intermittently, because she wants to escape her mental illness, but also is weirded out by the idea that she needs to take medication in order to be herself. It raises questions of who your "self" really is, and I think that digging into a character with a mental illness was an interesting take and one he hasn't really done before. And also importantly, Aza doesn't have an experience in which she falls and love and is magically cured by some guy's awesomeness, which is kind of common for characters with mental illness in novels that feature a romantic interest.
The main plot here involves a missing billionaire, the father of a friend Aza had when she was younger. Her best friend, Daisy, insists that Aza re-insinuate herself in Davis' life in hopes of finding something that will qualify them to win a hundred thousand dollar reward for information leading to his father being found--Davis Sr. having absconded in an attempt to avoid criminal charges involving a lot of money. There isn't really a "search" that Aza gets involved with, though she picks away at a few weird things that Davis' younger brother brings up. However, most of the story really revolves around Aza and her mental illness, which doesn't really seem to be mentioned in the book description. I feel like some people might be disappointed by what they find in this book, but I think that the way it was structured and the way it ends perfectly suited a character like Aza. The ending is one that might not be considered "happy," because Aza isn't magically cured of her illness, but it is a fitting one.
Writing about characters with mental illnesses is tricky, because you're just asking to be jumped on by a ton of people with similar mental illnesses who haven't had the same experience. But I think Green did a good job here, and this was a very enjoyable read. My only complaint is actually about Daisy. Daisy is made out to be this great friend to Aza, except for one thing involving the Star Wars fanfiction she writes, with the point being made that Aza hasn't really been a great friend because she's so stuck in her own head. But Daisy is kind of a terrible person. She knows that Aza has a mental illness, but doesn't care. She lashes out and ditches Aza and and doesn't give Aza credit for anything that she does, insinuating that Aza doesn't deserve credit for anything because she is more privileged than Daisy. But we can see that Aza does know things about Daisy, that Daisy accuses her of not knowing because she doesn't pay attention. Does it seem like, in Aza's more stable periods, she could have made more of an effort? Yes. But Daisy is utterly terrible to Aza when she's spiraling down into a pit, and Aza just lets her off the hook for it, which I can't quite forgive on either front.
Overall, though, a good read.
4 stars out of 5.
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