Book Review :: Turtles All the Way Down, by John Green

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green
on October 10th 2017
Genres: Young Adult
Pages: 288
Goodreads

Sixteen-year-old Aza never intended to pursue the mystery of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Russell Pickett’s son, Davis.

Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.

Last updated on 14 October 2023

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What is Turtles All the Way Down by John Green about?

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green is the story of sixteen-year-old Aza and her best friend Daisy. They get caught up in a missing persons case: where is Russell Pickett?

Aza’s lived near the millionaire’s house for years, and it’s Daisy’s idea to ‘accidentally’ bump into Davis Pickett, the son, whom Aza knew from their younger years. The idea is to check out the place, find out what happened to Russell and claim the reward.

But not all goes according to plan, and Aza finds herself (and her tightening spirals of thoughts) way more involved with the family than they originally planned.

My Thoughts on Turtles All the Way Down

Turtles All the Way Down was a long-awaited John Green book that I was way too excited to get my hands on. So much so, in fact, that I went straight down to the bookstore on the day it was released and bought it.

Unfortunately, I was in the middle of another book at the time, and then I had library books to read, and then summer happened and I needed a big book to take away with me so I only had to take one and not 10 … so it wasn’t until February that I actually picked it up. Sad, I know.

Dealing with a mental health issue like anxiety in a Young Adult story has been written about by many a talented author, but John Green writes Aza in such a fresh way that it wasn’t like anything else I’d read. Aza’s struggles with her invading thoughts and her tightening spirals (down and down and turtles all the way down) were very real, and John Green never tends to dull down any of these issues in his stories, which is definitely how it should be.

Characters aside, the plot was fun, in a sad sort of way. I liked the mystery element to it, the who-done/where-has-he-disappeared-to element, and the way the connections were made between what happened and what people merely thought happened. In a sense the mystery was a side-story, the book really being about Aza and her mental health, but I love the combination of the two. It was incredibly sad at the same time because Davis and his little brother Noah are left without a father, Noah wants him back, but Davis isn’t sure, and to top it all off the pet tuatara (New Zealand native lizard…yes, kind of like a modern-day dinosaur) gets the inheritance should Russel be found dead.

It was a looooong time coming, this book, but boy was it worth the wait. Another excellent story from an excellent writer. I can’t wait for his next story already.

Have you read Turtles All the Way Down?