K. Z. Richards

Turtles All the Way Down is a YA novel by John Green focused on the life of Aza, a high schooler with OCD who struggles to find her identity amidst a mental illness that she feels makes her choices for her. While Aza struggles to cope with a crippling fear of C. diff, her outgoing best friend, Daisy, urges her to develop a relationship with her old friend, Davis, a billionaire’s son whose father is a fugitive with a $100,000 reward for information leading to his capture.

I have read several of John Green’s books, and though I would not give any of them more than three stars, this has been my favorite so far. While I usually find Green’s characters too cynical, moody and witty, Aza felt relatable, and by the end of the book I had come to care about her. I also appreciated the themes the book explored—that mental illness is a never ending battle and not something that is cured, that life is a series of peaks and valleys that we can frame how we choose, and that true friendships extend beyond personal shortcomings. I also liked that the ending is realistic, fulfilling, and gives proper weight to heavy issues like mental illness and loss of loved ones. However, the plot itself left something to be desired. The beginning seems to promise a thrilling mystery, but the focus is instead on the characters’ mundane lives as they meander endlessly between their homes and Applebees. If you have enjoyed John Green’s other books, then you will probably like this one, but I found the book a bit stagnant until the last quarter when the characters and the plot finally began to move toward a satisfying conclusion.