John Green published Turtles All the Way Down following several major successes, including his sensational book-turned-movie, The Fault In Our Stars. Naturally, Turtles All the Way Down had big shoes to fill. And judging from reviews on Goodreads and discussions that I’ve had with my peers, I’ve reached the conclusion that most people believe Turtles All the Way Down falls short of John Green’s other works, let alone The Fault In Our Stars.
As for me, I adamantly and passionately hold the unpopular opinion on this subject matter. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it now, and I’ll likely never stop saying it: I. LOVE. Turtles All the Way Down!!!
Burdened by her severe anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder, Aza Holmes, the main character in the Young Adult novel Turtles All the Way Down, struggles to carry out a normal life; she wants to be a good student, a good daughter, and a good friend, but her “intrusive thoughts” and strange fear of C. diff are forever spiraling, as infinite as a line of turtles (wondering where this phrase comes from? Click here to learn all about it!). Consequently, she’s a quiet girl with loud thoughts.
Told through the eyes of Aza Holmes, Turtles All the Way Down incorporates many different topics and evokes a multitude of emotions. I’ll admit that, at first, I thought this book was just your average YA book that mimics the hero cycle step-by-step and fails to transcend boring character archetypes. I think this is mostly accredited to the fact that the first half of the story was pretty slow.
I also didn’t immediately connect with Aza — I empathized with her challenges and acknowledged that she was doing the best she could in every respect, yet I found her complaining and self-pity to be annoying, and she wasn’t a character who I could find much common ground with. However, I quickly grew intrigued, by her best friend, Daisy, who is outgoing, bold, daring, and cares little about what others thing (at least, on the outside). To that end, even though I was not the biggest fan of Aza, the friendship between Aza and Daisy was always interesting to read about. They are such good friends yet they are so vastly different, and I loved the foil nature of their friendship.
John Green also used Turtles All the Way Down as a platform to address a topic that is highly relevant in today’s society: mental illness. Readers get frequent insights into Aza’s mind and the battles between the side of her that wants to remain rational and the side of her that has been hijacked by her OCD and anxiety. Aza feels like a helpless prisoner to her thoughts, which she experiences “not as a choice but as a destiny. Not as a catalog of [her] consciousness, but as a refutation of it” (59). She constantly wishes that she could pick and choose the thoughts that come into her life, but that’s easier said than done. Life through Aza’s eyes is different, and readers get to walk through at this blurry version of reality. However, the learning that Aza undergoes over the course of the novel is incredible. Her character is so dynamic that, by the end, it seems to scream: while you cannot always change or get rid of your flaws, you can still overcome them to become your best self. This is the very theme of Turtles All the WayDown; this is the idea that sticks to me like it’s been stuck on with super glue because it is so insanely powerful; this is the message that, through all the drama and action of this riveting story, is conveyed so masterfully by John Green.
Finally, I can’t write a review of Turtles All the Way Down without mentioning THE ENDING. I mentioned previously that I wish the action started earlier in the novel, but the slow nature of the majority of the book did made the ending all the more impactful. Without giving it away, I’ll say that this ending is one of the best book endings I’ve ever encountered. It just does a phenomenal job of bringing the story full circle while still leaving you feeling a little on edge. It ranges from happy to sad, shallow to deep, simple to complex. It talks about loss. Fear. Mental illness. Intrusive thoughts. Friendship. Love. Money. The daunting, unknown nature of the future. Broken relationships that make you want to crawl into a hole and cry just reading about. Mended relationships that bring you back home every day, no matter where you’ve been or where you’re headed. It is amazing yet devastating, insightful yet simple, enlightening yet tragic, the perfect balance of all the infinite worlds of emotion and truth and those nuanced tugging feelings you get in your heart when you read something so raw that it kind of just takes you aback to know that someone could have the guts to be so fiercely honest in this day and age of lying and hating and hurting and back-stabbing. It tore me apart and shattered my heart into a million pieces, not necessarily out of sadness, but just out of shock because I couldn’t comprehend it. It’s one of endings that you can’t even classify as happy or sad. It’s both. It’s terrible and tragic and goes against everything that I wished for throughout the story, yet it’s amazing and I wonder how one story can offer so much light and hope.
This — this insane, unexplainable, twisted feeling that this ending evoke — is the reason why I love Turtles All the Way Down.
Leave a Comment!