This story was a heart-warming piece on a young girl struggling with relationships and having to find a way around her crippling mental illness that leaves her feeling hopeless and miserable throughout the book along with trying to solve a local mystery.
I would recommend this book to anyone of any age so they can enter the mind of someone who has a mental illness. This truly brought me back to those times that I was struggling myself in high school with anxiety.
Moderate: Self harm, Car accident, Mental illness, and Panic attacks/disorders
Minor: Suicide, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Grief, and Cursing
When I picked up this book I thought it was going to be a story full of mystery, however, in good John Green fashion it was way deeper. I have read a number of John Green’s novels, and this is one that I haven’t read. Just like all of John Green’s books, it was a depiction of real emotion and real life.
The main character, Aza, is a young girl in high school who quickly shows that she has a severe mental illness that haunts her. Her friend, Daisy, is the complete opposite of her. Daisy loves adventure and trying out new things and can’t completely understand why Aza is the way that she is.
They discover that the billionaire in their city was missing and Aza admits that she knows the billionaire’s son. In response, Daisy decides for them that they were going to go over to his house and find the hidden camera that would have detected the billionaire running away from the house. They decide to take a canoe and go to the house and connect to the camera which they managed to find the video and save it. However, they were caught and Daisy decided to smash the boat so that they could have an excuse to see Davis.
After seeing Davis, Aza and Davis decided to rekindle their friendship. While trying to rekindle their friendship, Aza and Daisy start looking into researching the disappearance of the billionaire. However, Davis doesn’t want any information found and gives Aza $100k just so she can leave the case be. She splits the money with Daisy but decides that she doesn’t want to stop working on the case.
While Daisy is spending her money, Aza is still trying to figure out the case for Davis’s brother. They continue on with life but Aza starts reading Daisy’s fanfiction and quickly discovers that Daisy had created a character that represented Aza that hurt her feelings. She stays quiet for a long while until she and Daisy are going to Applebee’s and Aza starts yelling at Daisy because she is hurt by the accusations which leads to Aza getting into a car accident.
After the car accident, Aza has a mental breakdown and ends up on house arrest for a few weeks before going back to school where her relationship with Daisy is healed and they move on with life. Even though Aza wants a relationship with Davis, she also wants to get better so she decides that she doesn’t want to have a relationship.
Aza and Daisy go to an art show for their friend and discover that they made it to the last clue Davis’s father had left. After telling Davis, Davis and his brother decide to tell the police and the body is quickly found.
This story had a deep connection to me. When I was in high school I had a debilitating anxiety that constantly plagued my mind so to see that written in a book made me feel seen. I could understand every single emotion that was written and I would honestly say that everyone needs to read this book to gain some insight on what it is like to have anxiety.