Turtles All The Way down by John Green - Book review

Hi everyone. I'm rincey and this is rincey reads. Today i'm going to be doing a book review on turtles all the way down by john green. This is a young adult book, contemporary young adult. I'm pretty sure you guys all realize that by now. So a quick synopsis: you are following this girl named Aza who is sixteen years old and she suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. There's also her best friend Daisy who is fearless and you know sticks by her side through anything. And there is this boy named Davis who Aza knew from way back in the day. I believe they said like they went to camp together or something along those lines. Davis's father is extremely rich and one day he goes missing. And so there is a reward out to figure out what happened to Davis's father. And so Daisy decides that her and Aza should catch up with Davis and try to figure out what happened to the father so that way they can get the reward so that way they don't have to worry about things like school and whatever because I think it's like a hundred thousand dollar reward or something along those lines. So first I have to say that I really enjoyed the story a lot but I did have some quibbles with it, some problems with it. The strongest part of this book far and away is Aza and the way that she describes her obsessive compulsive disorder. Now I'm someone who hasn't read a ton of books that have to do with OCD and people with like anxiety and other sort of mental illnesses. So I can't say from experience that this is like the best description but I feel like the way that she describes her thoughts and her actions and the way that she feels is so clear that whether you have obsessive-compulsive disorder or not or you've experienced it with someone else or like you know someone else who has it, I feel like she does such a good job of portraying the feelings that she has and how the disorder affects her and how it impacts her daily life. I feel like this book is worth reading for that alone. I've never sort of experienced that before and I think that there's a level of just vulnerability that happens in this book. John Green himself has admitted to having OCD and I don't know if it's like exactly the same as Aza's but I would assume that it's similar to Aza's because the way that he's able to describe it is so like detailed and perfect that I can only imagine that that's what he has to go through as well. There's a lot that Aza a sort of explorers in terms of her own OCD but also just general teenage anxiety and insecurities that happen as well. You know, her relationships, she questions her relationships with like Daisy and Davis and is not completely sure if she's like a good friend a lot of the times and she's often worried about how her OCD is impacting other people. But then sometimes she gets stuck in her own self that she also doesn't always realize how her OCD is impacting other people. And I think that Aza as a character is just really, really interesting and well drawn out and just beautiful and so well done. With that said, all of the other characters are so flat in my opinion. I have this problem with almost every john green book that his side characters are always sound so so interesting but they're never given enough like time or room to develop unto themselves. Like this book is relatively short. And part of me wonders like what it would have been like if he was given another 50 to 100 pages to explore these side characters. Now it's possible that if he did that the story would have fallen off the rails a little bit. But I feel like Daisy has so much potential in her and like you find out these little glimpses of her life but you don't actually get to see her fully fleshed out. There's also like a fight that happens between Daisy and Aza in this story and it feels like that just resolves so very quickly. But I think the biggest like downfall to this book is just the main plot itself of this missing person. It feels kind of unnecessary. Like this whole quote-unquote mystery of this missing person doesn't feel very mysterious at all and it just feels like this sort of side thing that's happening. And I feel like this book just would have been stronger without that. So yeah, is this like the best John Green Book book ever? I don't know. It's hard to say. Like I still like The Fault in Our Stars more as an overall book but I feel like this book had such a stronger impact on me in terms of like specific scenes and specific lines and specific situations that he explores. Like there were points in this book that made me want to cry. And obviously The Fault in Our Stars had points that made me want to cry but it's the obvious points that made me want to cry. In hear like there are certain ideas that Aza expresses or certain like lines that are written in here that are just so beautiful but also so heartbreaking that, yeah, it made me want to cry. And I feel like this is probably his strongest written book in terms of like the actual writing itself. But he still struggles like with plot things and like I mentioned in my wrap-up like they still sound like Dawson's Creek characters in terms of like sounding significantly older than they are. Like I forgot that Aza was 16 years old. If you, if I had read this book without knowing her age and without the fact that knowing she was in high school, I would have assumed she was in college. And part of me wonders like what would happen if John Green started writing characters who were in college because if you told me that these characters were in college like that seems plausible to me. But saying that they're in high school, not as much. So yeah, in the end I gave this a three and a half out of five stars because I really enjoyed it but I just also had like those problems with it that I always had with it. But it's probably up there with The Fault in Our Stars. I'm really, really glad I've read it. I would say that if you like John Green you should definitely pick this up or if you just like contemporary young adult in general you should definitely pick this up. But I don't think it's necessarily going to appeal to every reader out there. If you have problems with those sort of John Green tropes then you're gonna have problems with this book as well. But for me personally like those things don't really hinder my enjoyment of his books. I'm able to still really enjoy those beautifully crafted sentences and like the way he creates this character to explore this disease is just really really well done. So yeah, those are my quick thoughts on turtles all the way down. Feel free to leave a comment down below letting me know if you read this book and what your thoughts are if you did read it. Or if you have any questions about the book, feel free to leave that down in the comment section as well. So yeah, that's all I have for now and thanks for watching.