Reviews with content warning for Vomit - Turtles All the Way Down

John Green will always have a soft spot in my heart. The Fault in Our Stars was my favorite book for so many years because it captured something special and important about being a teenager.

Turtles All the Way Down does the same thing, but extends it to include something special and important about what it’s like to live with a mental illness.

Aza’s story is painful and, at times, heartbreaking to read. But her story is so important.

When you have an unseen diagnosis, it’s so hard to explain it to someone who doesn’t have it. When you have a mental illness, it’s so hard to know if you’re capable of being loved because it’s so easy to fall into the trap of believing that you are simply too annoying, too irritating, too irrational, too hard to love.

And John Green captures every feeling with all the grace, dignity, and humility that I’ve grown to expect from him.

If you know someone who has a mental illness, please read this book. It will shed light on what it’s like in ways most people can’t explain.

If you have a mental illness, please read this book. It will make you feel seen and understood in ways that you didn’t quite know were possible.

5/5 stars with zero hesitation. Thank you, John Green. <3

Content Warnings

acasiamae's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Content Warnings

daybreakreads's review against another edition

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mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I’ve finished 3 other books by John Green and always enjoyed them. This one, not so much. I’m not sure if I would shelve this as YA; it’s teetering on the edge of what should and shouldn’t be normalized for YA. I’d say minimum age is 16-17 because of the questionable sexualized content (without much purpose to the storyline). It wasn’t graphic, just strange to be reading about the details of teenagers feeling each other up and *normalizing* stripping down to their underwear to go swimming when one of them has no guardian/parents. It wasn’t the thing itself so much as the normalization/casualness of it. Like that would be a situation where a lot of teenage girls would be extremely uncomfortable in if not get taken advantage of and I don’t think we should treat it flippantly.

The characters in this drive me bonkers. The main character had zero personality outside of the OCD. Daisy was a terrible friend from the beginning (which increased throughout) and was honestly a liberal SJW stereotype more than any other defining characteristics, and the love interests felt flat and one-sided. I don’t remember this in Looking For Alaska, for example. I wish John Green would give us socially awkward, heavily nerdy characters again.

The OCD descriptions in this are intense. If you have any sort of inclination towards mental illness I don’t think you should read this. I say this as someone who battled it for nearly a decade. Even if you don’t have OCD, you might be susceptible to the problematic thought patterns and/or behaviors described regularly and in immense detail by the narrator.

Aza makes a comment saying she’ll always be this way and that never got corrected or amended later. This was so incredibly sad to me as someone who recovered from OCD (among other things). I know John Green also lives with it, but it is possible to get better and mental illness in general is rarely a lifelong thing. I feel like someone struggling may read that and internalize it, which is another reason I don’t think it should necessarily be YA.

Content Warnings

jesse_5's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Content Warnings

infjkiki's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

judythedreamer's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

John Green is just not for me. He writes amazing philosophical spirals and character portraits but he neglects the story so much that there's little to no enticement to keep the train going.

Content Warnings

hexa's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This book was recommended to me by a friend, and I'm glad that it was. It was a sweet, sad, and hopeful look on life and loss and so much more, and I loved it.

Let's talk about what I loved:
The characters: John Green has a real talent for creating developed, real characters that you can't help but love.
The dialogue: the dialogue and conversations are great, what more can I say?
The feels: this book made me cry and even laugh (not really a laugh, more of an exhale). It was great.
The writing style: the writing is consumable and accessible and makes great use of metaphors and similes.
The fanfiction: does John Green actually write Star Wars fanfiction in his spare time? How does he know so much?? He literally used the term 'kudos', like, what?? If he does then someone tell me what his A03 account is because I gotta know.

Now my criticisms:
The plot: the plot was by no way boring, I just didn't find myself as invested in it as I was the characters, which could be a fault on my part.
The abbreviations: it was a minor pet peeve, but the characters kept using abbreviations like TBH and BTW in actual, real life conversations. It just made me cringe inwardly a bit.

Ultimately, not my favourite John Green book, but still a really good read.

Content Warnings

jinx_mars's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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