Turtles All the Way Down

Pretty subpar. I knew this was going to be geared towards a teen audience. But this was pretty bad. Story was awful, not much development. Not many twists and turns. Felt like it was written by a 5th grader for their final project. Needless to say, thus will be the last John Green book I'll be picking up.. looks like I'm too old for his work. Bummed as I loved a lot of his earlier work.

Let me start by saying that I usually stay away from this genre in general but I gave it a shot because I like turtles (yeah). First, I thought that overall, this book had its clever and funny moments while others seemed to be drawn out and made me cringe a bit. Something I really liked about this book was that the main character (Aza) realizes the existence of tropes in the book and comments on her story through a lens of "if my life were a book". This gave me a deadpool-ish feel which I really loved. I also thought that it was interesting how Aza is a sidekick rather than the main hero (something she also references herself). Also, I did hands down love the relationship between Aza and Daisy as well as the growth of the relationship between Aza and Davis. Also, I LOVED how he uses a variety of way to get his story across(texting,dialogue,blogs) However... Something I didn't really like while reading this book would be Aza's spirals. However, if the book is in the mind of Aza, I get why we have to go through them as well. Another thing I didn't like which is not specific was that he seems to force some moments such as Davis talking about Aza's ass. It just didn't feel like Davis's character would do that and thus didn't feel genuine. Also, really didn't care for the scenes with the therapist but I did see the use for them in character development. Also, I was kind of annoyed that the tuatara didn't have a more sinister sub-plot but that's maybe something weird that I suspected. Finally, the last thing I didn't like was the ending. I felt like the author didn't really deliver the ending that the book had set the reader up for. But... this was another use of going against common tropes so I respect it. Final notes: The book is an incredibly smooth read and although it has its slow moments, I read it cover to cover in a night so how bad could it be. I recommend it for a veteran realistic fiction reader who wants to add some spice to their reading life. PS I thought in the beginning especially that it felt like a gender-swapped Tom Sawyer but then turned out to be much more mental and emotional than I expected.

A good story about growing up with mental illness. John Green has a knack for telling stories you don't expect to love, and yet, you can't help but enjoy it. It would be on my bookshelf.