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A review by daybreakreads
Turtles All the Way Down by John Green
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.
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
Graphic: Mental illness
Moderate: Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Car accident, and Death of parent
Minor: Medical content, Vomit, and Sexual content