#20 - Turtles All The Way Down by John Green

   Just The Basics

    Published: May 2, 2024

    Genre: Coming of age, realistic fiction.

    Pages: 286 pages

    Acknowledgements:  Lincoln Award Nominee (2020)

        "To be alive is to be missing.”

    "Turtles All the Way Down" is a coming-of-age/realistic fiction novel by John Green. Aza Homes is a high schooler riddled with anxiety, a constant spiral of harmful "what-ifs" barely beneath the surface of her already quiet demeanor. In Indianapolis, Indiana, the life of Aza and her best friend Daisy (Star Wars fan-fiction writer extraordinaire) is relatively plain until the mysterious disappearance of local billionaire Russell Pickett. However, "luckily" for Aza and Daisy, Aza had met Russell Pickett's son Davis, years earlier at a grief counseling camp for those with dead parents. As Aza and Daisy try to unravel Russell Pickett's disappearance, the girls find themselves wrapped up again with David and his brother Noah, who are both still reeling from the mysterious disappearance of their father. In a story that is much more about mental health and the struggles of living with OCD than solving a crime, Turtles All the Way Down is about how difficult it is for the inner worlds of young people to collide. Aza and Davis have a romance, but one that can only survive at a distance, both because of Aza's worsening OCD and Davis's struggles with the public eye's attention on his family. This novel feels like a season of life where a young person grows up quickly, in the face of both wonderfully supportive friendships, the trials of mental health, and the trauma of losing a parent.  

    Why "Turtles All the Way Down"?

    I think it is fitting that I end my list of 20 YA titles with a John Green book. You see, John Green and I go way back. I was once a subscriber to the Vlog Brother's YouTube channel back in the early 2010s, a badge of book nerd honor on my Millennial resume. John Green is probably the YA author I have read the most of. I read Paper Towns, The Fault in Our Stars, and Looking for Alaska when they all came out-- even before movies and shows were made of them. I wanted to end this list with Green's 2024 novel, because I felt a bit nostalgic in seeing that he's still actively releasing books. I have not read a John Green book since I was exiting high school, so Turtles All the Way Down felt like a ten-year high school reunion with an author I haven't seen since then. I've always loved Green's style of dialogue-focused narrative writing. I knew this novel was going to be good before even reading it, because I knew the style and type of story Green likes to write. Quiet stories, stories that might be full of emotionality but won't contain any big car chases. Turtles All the Way Down was still wonderfully personable, full of witty dialogue, and was a quick read with an emotional story. The trust I have in John Green is still warranted even 15 years after I first watched his YouTube videos. 

    Teaching Considerations

     Turtles All the Way Down would make a great novel for freshmen or Sophomore readers. This book exemplified internal and external conflict in a way that uses both types of conflict to add depth to a relatively simple story. I can teach this novel to a whole class because I understand Green's body of work and can make connections about his auteurship and what's important in the books he writes. This novel would also be a good choice for a book or book club option. I can see this book fitting into a unit on family, mental health, grief, or loss of innocence. The only triggering moments of this novel are Aza's intense moments of anxiety, obsessive compulsion, and even self-hatred. Aza gets close to suicidal ideation due to her mental state; however, this novel does not go as far as having her harm herself (other than some habitual, and minor, self-harm like opening her cuts on her fingers). I think this is the best John Green book to use in a classroom over the four I have now read, as Aza's interiority, along with Aza and Davis's search for more information on Mr. Pickett, shows how internal and external conflict can shape a plot, and usually combine to make the story intriguing. 

      Sections to Read Aloud & Reasoning

1. Twenty-Four 

• "Spirals grow infinitely small the farther you follow them inward, but they also grow infinitely large the farther you follow them out." (Page 284)

    While Aza deals with her often crippling anxiety and OCD symptoms, she uses the metaphor of spiraling. In this novel, the metaphor works differently as Aza both spirals deeper into her thought-spiral, or in the above moment, where she finally begins to spiral out of it. This metaphor is important in understanding how Aza thinks, and how thinking can be a difficult thing for her to stop. The sections of intense interiority where Aza battles with herself are some of the most fruitful moments for close reading and analysis. 

        2. Twenty-Two 

• "You're both the fire and the water that extinguishes it. You're the narrator, the protagonist, and the sidekick. You're the storyteller and the story told. You are somebody's something, but you are also your you.” (page 245)

    An interesting and meta part of this novel is how Aza often remarks that she "feels like a character" or feels like an abstraction, with her free will an illusion of the circumstances of her life leading her along. In the passage above, Aza is finally regulated somewhat due to medication and more talk therapy. This is an important tipping point for her character, as she realises that she is, in fact, herself, finally feeling some agency against her mental illness. Sections like these would make great discussion points for whole-class talks about free will, struggles with mental health, and Descartian philosophy. 

    Overall Thoughts

        Turtles All the Way Down was a great place to end my journey through YA lit (at least for now) because this book is a great example of young adult literature having just as much power in its construction as adult literature. This book felt deep, profound even, with both entertaining characters and an entertaining plot. Yes, this book seemed "simple" in terms of a very linear story; however, that allowed Green's characters to shine like they were supposed to. I am still my high school self, reading Looking for Alaska, when I read Turtles All the Way Down. I finished this book in just a few days, and I know my high-school self would have done the same. The relationship between Aza and Davis is impossible and complicated, much like the romance in The Fault in Our Stars, only in the last chapter of Turtles, Green provides a transcendent flash-forward where the reader gets to see how Aza learns from this season of her life. This book is both small and big at the same time, as the story effortlessly zooms in and out on the details that make it feel important. 

    Future Explorations

     This future exploration section seems very easy to write about-- I think I'm going to watch the HBO movie version of this story to celebrate the completion of my 20th YA book for this year. As an English teacher, I know John Green is not going anywhere in my life. Either students or other teachers will bring their works to my bookshelf again, and I think they deserve a place there. John Green was and continues to be a big part of my relationship with YA literature, and I am thrilled that I liked Turtles All the Way Down as much as all the others I have read from him-- as a kid or as an adult English educator.