Turtles All the Way Down - John Green

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

So my opinion on this book is no doubt the unpopular one. And in the interest of full disclosure, I have only completely read one other John Green book. I've quit a few others. I wanted to quit Fault in our Stars but also wanted to finish to see if it lived up to the buzz. I wanted to quit this one multiple times. But I have heard it gives such a clear picture of someone living with anxiety, I wanted to finish and see that. However, I think all the things I disliked made it difficult for me to appreciate the picture of the anxiety struggle.

Daisy convinces her anxiety-ridden friend, Aza, to pursue and then abandon the mystery of a local billionaire's disappearance. Through this Aza reconnects (sort of) with a boy she had met at summer camp years before.

The whole tone of the book was grating. I never really connected to any of the characters. They seemed more like caricatures to me. As I've thought about it, maybe that's what was intended so that the "character" of anxiety was the only thing with depth. But all the characters annoyed me and were just super selfish and self-focused. True - to an extent - of some teenagers, or some would say teens in general. I would like to think better of our next generation and have seen many teens who don't live in "angst all the time" mode.

Anyway, I didn't love it. I'm not sure I hated it, but it was definitely less than "meh" for me.



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