Turtles All the Way Down

I just finished reading it. And I am sitting here crying. I hated it. And I absolutely loved it. Now that you are utterly confused, read on if any one you love struggles with mental illness. I hated this book for a lot of reasons. I hated it because the characters in it bug the crap out of me. Worse than some of the more annoying people in my real life. I hated it because there are things stylistically I wanted from this author, because he is one of my favorite authors, and those things, stylistically, were not really there. I hate it because my greatest fear in life is of spiraling into uncontrollable mental illness, and the book puts you inside the head of someone who has a spiraling mental illness, and it does so with just an eerie amount of accuracy, and I don\’t want to be inside that spiral. It is too scary inside that spiral. And I hate this book most of all because some of the people I love most in life, people who truly own parts of my soul, live inside that spiral far too often, and it hurts deep down to be reminded of that. I don\’t like to read books that make me hurt. I usually avoid them at all costs. If I start one, and discover it is that kind of book, I don\’t often finish it. But this book is by John Green, with whom I have a relationship that is hard to explain. Because so much of the history minutiae I have memorized is from Crash Course videos, he is the voice inside my head when I think of history. He is much smarter than me, which I admire, and a phenomenal writer, which I envy. So I had to finish the book. I absolutely love this book because revealing your inner demons in such vivid reality is incredibly brave, and that makes him a hero in my eyes. John Green suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (which is not ever named in the book, but it is painted in horrifically detailed words throughout). People don\’t talk about mental illness enough, but here he is revealing his inmost self. And yes, it is him. He has been doing interviews about it and whatnot. The doctor the protagonist sees in the book is even similarly named to his own doctor, whom he thanks in the acknowledgements. John Green has a credibility with teenagers that is pretty hard to establish, and as a result, millions of teenagers are going to read this book. That might not seem a small thing, but it might mean that perhaps the world will understand mental illness just a little bit better. For that, John Green is my hero. Read at your own risk. And I am still crying.

I love John Green. Heck, I have a quote from Looking For Alaska tattooed on my arm. But, if you have ever dealt with extreme OCD – don\’t read this! I dealt with diagnosed extreme OCD from ages 6-12. You are constantly in the girl\’s head. So, her obsessive thoughts become yours and there is no break from it. I was driving myself crazy and my OCD thoughts were increasing. So, if you are easily triggered, don\’t read this. If someone wants an insight to how the OCD mind works, it may be worth a read – but I couldn\’t even get into the story, let alone the incessant thoughts.

No traditional review of this one…..I just can’t. I got it at school at 11:40 am on release day and finished it at 6:25 pm and it BROKE. MY. HEART. It’s the most powerful and open book about mental illness that I have read, and it’s required reading for everyone, but especially those who don’t understand the intensity of OCD and extreme anxiety. It is unlike any of his other work, but it’s still funny and it’s still so so sad, but it’s also Green’s OWN struggle. Go read his interview with NYT and try to tell me you didn’t want to cry. And if I see even ONE “but it’s not like TFIOS” whiny review…….don’t get me started. Read this book. Work through the discomfort. Honor his pain.

\”I was beginning to learn that your life is a story told about you, not one that you tell.\” It was like reading an autobiography (that someone else wrote for me). Change the fear of bacteria to the fear of losing loved ones, and that is my life. Turtles all the way down. I don\’t think there is any other novel I have read in recent past that struct such perfect cord. Favorite Lines: * Love is not a tragedy or a failure, but a gift. * You remember your first love because they show you, prove to you, that you can love and be loved, that nothing in this world is deserved except for love, that love is both how you become a person, and why. * I would never slay the dragon, because the dragon was also me. * To be alive is to be missing. * The problem with happy endings is that they\’re either not really happy, or not really ending. * You\’re the storyteller and the story told. * The world is also the stories we tell about it. * I remember what I\’ve imagined and imagine what I remember. * Thoughts are just a different kind of bacteria, colonizing you. * I knew how disgusting I was. I knew. I knew now for sure. I wasn\’t possessed by a demon. I was the demon. * What I love about science is that as you learn, you don\’t really get answers. You just get better questions. * I couldn\’t make myself happy, but I could make people around me miserable. * One of the defining features of parent is that they don\’t get paid to love you. * Being vulnerable is asking to get used. * Maybe I am just a lie that I am whispering to myself. * Your now is not your forever. * In some ways, pain is the opposite of language. * Illness is a story told in past tense. * I don\’t mind worries. Worrying is the correct worldview. Life is worrisome. * We are about to live the American Dream, which is, of course, to benefit from someone else\’s misfortune. * Anybody can look at you. It\’s quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see.

If you know me, you’ll know that I love John Green. I adore all of his books and I’m pretty much a walking cliché for it. So naturally, I’ve been waiting for Turtles All the way Down for years… like, literally yeas. I ordered it the day it came out and a few days later, it was on my doorstep. First of all… I have to admit that I cried when I saw the special dust jacket cover which has a poster of all his most famous book quotes from his previous books. So yeah, that happened. But anyway… onto this book. I have a lot to say so I’m going to review it a little different, in sections rather than one great big whack of writing. What’s it about? Turtles All the Way Down is about Aza and her best friend Daisy who discover that a billionaire in their town has gone missing. Not only that, there’s a huge reward for anyone who can help locate him. And not only that, Aza used to be good friends with his son. Aza and Davis become close and have to navigate through their relationship and their own issues, including Aza’s severe OCD and mental health problems. Storyline Admittedly, it wasn’t the most riveting storyline in terms of action. The billionaire storyline probably wasn’t strictly needed but unlike so many others, I actually really liked it winding through the main elements which is firmly Aza’s OCD and anxiety (more on that later). I thought the missing billionaire element could have been a bit “more” but I also understand that it was more about Davis and his brother, Noah’s reaction to their negligent, missing dad rather than the dad himself. Mental health & Aza John Green did an amazing job with Aza. Written from her point of view, you get a real, raw sense of what it’s like being in the mind of someone with OCD. Although I have anxiety, I don’t have OCD nor do I know too much about it and the thought processes that people with the condition have on a daily basis. But this book truly made me understand more. If you’re one of those people that say something is, “a little bit OCD” then I would highly suggest you read this book because I guarantee you will stop saying something so insensitive after reading it. It was heart-breaking at times, seeing Aza’s constant struggle with her own mind. It’s quite obvious that Green went through extensive research for this character and her condition. We’ve all read books with mental health themes which weren’t sensitive or accurate and generally just got it really wrong but John Green knows what he’s doing, he understands and you can tell that straight away from this book. He doesn’t try and make Aza anything she’s not. She is what she is, thinks how she thinks and that’s that, we take her or leave her but we’re also led to sympathise with her and really feel for her as a character. Characters Aside from Aza who I’ve gone in to, I absolutely loved Aza’s best friend Daisy, she had such a huge personality and was probably my favourite character in the whole book – she’s the kind of person I’d love to be friends with myself (she also writes Star Wars fan fiction,what more could you want?) She’s a huge contrast to Aza, in fact the complete opposite and despite the fact they clash quite heavily in one part of the book, I think it makes them better friends that they are so different. I would have liked to read more about Davis and know him more because on the surface, he’s a really interesting and intriguing character. He’s clearly quite lost in himself and in life – perhaps because of growing up a billionaire’s son and not having a mum but I liked the insights into his blog and his poetry. There wasn’t many more main-ish characters but I think the characters such as Aza’s mum and her psychologist were very well written but also very annoying but I think that was intentional, especially because the book was written in Aza’s POV. From my own anxiety experiences, I know that people can come across as annoying when dealing with your mental health, even though their intentions are well. Final thoughts After such a long wait, I personally was not disappointed in the slightest with Turtles All the Way Down. As always, it captures Green’s beautiful way with words and his immaculate ability to make you think about yourself and life in completely different ways. It was effortlessly written and effortless to read – it was without a doubt the quickest book I’ve read all year and I’m not a fast reader. Although it’s not the most action-packed and riveting book, it packs a punch, delivers a message and it made me think about the idea of the “self”, of our thoughts and actions and what it means to love and miss people. Nothing I say will do this book justice for me. I adored every bit of it.

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