A review by eventide
Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

informative mysterious reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Turtles All the Way Down left me spinning with a lot of thoughts. Some positive, others not so much. It was a wild and fascinating ride, so much that I can’t say I regret reading it, but I do wish it could have been just a bit more enjoyable. 

My main motivation for picking up this book was that the main character, Aza Holmes, has OCD. As a person with OCD myself and a total psychology nut, I was intrigued by the concept of a story about a character with the disorder. 

I went in mostly blind, diving headfirst into the story without reading the synopsis. I vaguely remembered BookTubers and people in the OCD community talking about it before, but I had no clue about the actual plot. I assumed it would be a diagnosis story but that wasn’t the case (and it was my own fault for assuming hahah). My misconception aside, the story still had a rather large focus on Aza’s experience with OCD and it was portrayed extremely well. I loved how Green really managed to paint a picture of what it’s like in Aza’s head. It pulls you in and makes you feel all the emotions she’s feeling and think all the thoughts she’s thinking, as she’s stuck in, as the story goes, “the ever-tightening gyre.” Dare I say it stands on the edge of being soft horror, especially near the end of the book. And in doing so, it really, excellently works. If ever I needed a way to show someone what OCD really feels like I would likely turn to this book.

P.S. for curiosity’s sake, Aza has a mix of
health / existential
obsessions mainly focused on
microbes, a fear of catching C. diff, and believing herself to be fictional.
She has compulsions mainly in the form of
re-reading wiki articles, re-opening a callus she’s had since she was little, and reapplying band-aids,
but (trying to avoid spoilers here) the compulsions get more severe as the story goes on. With that being said, even in the first chapter it may be a bit much for anyone who’s very squeamish or uncomfortable with depictions of
self-harm.
 

Now, I may have sung praises for John Green’s depiction of OCD but I still have to nitpick. I know he has OCD himself so I can’t complain too much, but my one gripe with this aspect of the book was that, for whatever reason, Green seems to be allergic to the word OCD. It’s not mentioned in the book at all, not even once. I found this puzzling and honestly a little frustrating. I know John wanted to describe the disorder in a way that doesn’t just use therapy terms but rather lets the reader feel and experience all of Aza’s inner turmoil with her, and he did well to do that, but to never name the disorder at all, to have such an amazing opportunity to bring awareness, and to do so but never put a name to the experience... It felt a little ironic to me. Some would argue that the semantics really don’t matter — anxiety, OCD, potato, potato — but there’s already so little understanding in the general population of what OCD really is. I’m sure it flies over plenty of readers’ heads and they just assume Aza has generalized anxiety disorder. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying OCD is worse than GAD. It’s not. But having OCD is already so confusing and isolating in itself, I’d hate for someone to be left in the dark if it can be prevented. 

Anyway, that’s probably 200 words too many on just the OCD aspect of the story. Onto the rest of it. 

The writing style was interesting, and I don’t mean that in a negative way. It wasn’t anything fancy but it also felt like a very distinct thing. It reads a lot like how John talks in his YouTube videos, which surprised me but in retrospect I really should have expected it. Not my usual cup of tea but for this particular book it worked really well. 

I thought the mystery plot was alright. It’s not some Agatha Christie level mystery that leaves you on the edge of your seat but it didn’t have to be. I don’t really have any complaints here. I would have liked a bit higher of stakes or a few more twists and turns but there didn’t have to be. It would have been nice to have the girls be just a bit more actively involved in it, but again, they didn’t have to be. Everything tied up quite nicely and I thought the way it unfolded was an interesting spin on how most mysteries tend to go. 

The characters were… I really don’t know any gentler way to say this: they were bland, annoying teenagers. And don’t get me wrong, I was a teenager once too. I understand that teens can be nearsighted little fricks who think themselves to be the next big philosophers. But man, I just really did not like these characters. Well, the girls at least. I didn’t dislike them enough to DNF the book, but I just found them to have no positive or interesting traits whatsoever. 

Aza I give a little more grace to because she’s so wrapped up in her thought spirals that there really isn’t much room for her to do a whole lot in the story. She spends a huge chunk of her days stuck in a cycle of obsessing, acting out compulsions, brief relief, obsessing yet again, and waiting for the chance to act the compulsions out once more. Rinse and repeat, quite literally. I get it. But it would have been nice to see that she had at least some sort of hobby (even one she abandoned due to the OCD cycle sucking up too much of her motivation and free time) or some likes and dislikes or… something. All we really learn about her is that she’s mentally ill, loves driving her dad’s old car, and eats at Applebee’s with her best friend. That’s… really not a lot to work with. There’s nothing memorable there. But again, I give Aza a bit of grace due to the repetitive, often all-consuming nature of her condition. 

Daisy though… she really got on my nerves. It seemed like all she did through the story was complain, make jabs at Aza (which I realize was a plot point, so I can forgive this one), and do things that felt really unnecessarily reckless and somehow faced little to no repercussions for any of it — before anybody brings out the pitchforks, I understand that Daisy and her family struggle with money and that she just wanted to treat herself for once but it still felt pretty disappointing that her actions didn’t lead to some sort of subplot. Maybe one in which she learns that just because Aza is anxious doesn’t mean her concerns aren’t sometimes warranted. Of course, it contributed to another subplot but it still felt like a bit of a wasted opportunity for even further chaos, which leads me to my next point: I know a lot of people can’t stand strained friendship subplots but I don’t usually mind them. They’re not my favorite thing in the world, but I know they serve a purpose… usually. I think Daisy’s actions would have been much more tolerable and they would have felt more purposeful if the author had built up a fondness for these characters in the readers before going full swing into reasons to be disappointed in them. How am I supposed to root for them becoming besties again if they don’t seem to get along straight off the bat? Why should I want them to patch things up when the first thought Aza has about her best friend is that she never understood why she even hangs around her and she feels that she only tolerates her? Sure, that could have been waved off as anxiety distorting her view of her friend but when we see pretty much right off the bat that Daisy is easily annoyed by Aza, that seemed to confirm my suspicion that these never had a particularly healthy friendship. 
And again, this dives into the fact that we really didn’t get to know these girls. What do they like? What was their childhood like together? They’ve been “lifelong friends,” so why don’t we actually see that? Give us some sentimental flashbacks with Aza pining for the days past when Daisy was nicer to her or something. Anything to give us a reason to WANT them to reconcile. What do they even do besides eat at Applebee’s and talk about what’s it’s like to work at Chuck E. Cheese?! Now, in Daisy’s defense, she does like Star Wars and she writes fanfics about it. But man, somehow even that managed to be annoying. I don’t know, maybe I’m getting old. 

Davis and Lucas were the only characters who didn’t either severely annoy me or leave me wishing for something a little more interesting. 

Davis was a sweet guy, and a decently well-rounded character! He had hobbies: poetry and star-gazing! Lovely! He also had a few likes and dislikes and although I can’t fathom some of his philosophical ramblings (I’m looking at you, ferris wheel quote), they didn’t get on my last nerve like those of the other characters. Bonus points for writing a boy who allows himself to be vulnerable, even if only in front of a girl. Also, his interactions with his brother were really wholesome. Love a supportive older sibling. My only gripe with him is that I would’ve liked to have seen him be a bit more determined to learn about Aza’s OCD. It would’ve been nice to see him being supportive and actually understand what’s going on in her brain rather than just being kind of confused but unbothered throughout it all. Even once Aza did finally explain why she acts the way she does, it felt pretty anticlimactic. 

Lucas was a champ, I hoped nothing but the best for that kid. He started off seeming like a character who wouldn’t have much importance in the story but ended up pleasantly surprising me. His and Aza’s interactions were very sweet. That’s really all I have to say about this character hahah. 

All in all, if not for the excellently written view inside the mind of a person with OCD, I’d likely have DNFed this book. The writing style was nice but nothing I found to be particularly wowing. The story, to me, was just “alright,” and the characters felt lackluster at best and unnecessarily annoying at worst. I don’t regret reading it, I just think it could have been better — and I’m unsure if I would ever read it again. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings