Book Review: Turtles All The Way Down by John Green

Genre: Romance / Young Adult

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The debate on human existence has always been a fascinating subject—why are we here? Are we in control of our own life or are we in some sort of simulation? Are we in a maze of inceptions, forever spiraling down a tightening gyre until we lose our sense of self?

Some of these questions are the core questions to the struggle introduced by John Green’s character, Aza, in the book Turtles All The Way Down.

Aza Holmes lives with her mom in the US state of Indiana and goes to White River High. She is an A-top student — she writes good class papers — who seems to have her path well laid out before her all the way to college. Everything is well with Aza...except she is not.

As she finds herself in a constant battle for rationality, for a sense of self, and for mental stability, she reconnects with her childhood friend, Davis Pickett Jr.

“But you give your thoughts too much power... Thoughts are only thoughts. They are not you. You do belong to yourself, even when your thoughts don’t.”

In between building a connection with Davis, staying sane while and after kissing him, and feeling for Davis’ younger brother, Noah, Aza finds herself spiraling down into a tightening gyre of her own thoughts that seek to drown her; and questions behind the disappearance of Davis Pickett Sr.

John Green returns with a gripping, emotionally tumultuous, and timely novel that paints a clear picture of what anxiety is. He poignantly and effectively puts a face to the demon that seems to be a generational disease but offers salvation in the end.

Green didn’t disappoint with Turtles All The Way Down — he combined an issue that has taken the lives of many young people across the world with history, arts and culture, and young romance that left me reeling, broken, wanting for more, and thinking. Thinking whether the feelings and thoughts were mine to begin with; whether they were forced into me by Green or whether they were someone else’s before they infected Green’s DNA responsible for genetic thinking therefore I am.

Turtles All The Way Down is not just about mental health. It’s about all of us and the definition of our thoughts and their power to take over us if we allow them to. In the end, like The Fault In Our Stars and Looking For Alaska, I found myself misplaced and emotionally wrecked. There was a happy ending that didn’t seem quite to have settled in just yet. If that’s the case, was there really a happy ending for Aza and Davis?

I guess Aza was right, sometimes, ending is all there is for us when we reach the last page.