Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had been looking forward to John Green's new book and was excited when a friend loaned me a copy.  It was a quick read. The story is engaging and moves along at a good pace. The central character of the story is Aza, a young woman who struggles with obsessive thoughts and bizarre compulsive behaviors. Aza struggles to function in the world despite these obsessive 'thought spirals' as she describes them. Aza has a caring mother and a wildly improbable best friend named Daisy. Aza and Daisy decide to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a local millionaire, who just happens to be the father of a boy Aza met at a children's grief camp. With Daisy's encouragement, Aza rekindles a friendship with Davis and finds herself having strong feelings for him, but her strange thoughts and behaviors keep getting in the way. Davis and his brother are struggling to deal with their father's disappearance, and despite her own issues, Aza feels compelled to help them. The author does a great job of exploring the chaotic world of mental illness by giving it a real face and a name, and he shows how devastating mental illness can be to live with. Once again John Green delivers a story of teen angst that feels much deeper and richer than the average young adult novel, and he leaves the reader with difficult questions to sort out on their own. I found the ending to be somewhat jarring and unfinished, but overall I enjoyed this book.

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