For weeks now I have been trying to find the right words to express my thoughts on John Green’s Turtles All the Way Down. I hereby declare myself defeated, and go with what I have:
With Turtles All the Way Down John Green managed to write a book that is not The Fault in Our Stars Part Two, but one that despite having all the familiar John-Greenisms, is still its own thing. And I am glad it is.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved this book. But I have a weakness for leading characters who have to deal with stuff (in this case, OCD), other than the plot-related stuff the author throws upon them (a missing person, a friend from days gone by and the feelings that come with him, friends who love you but hold a mirror up in your face), and snappy, quotable writing like
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
For some reason, I wanted to tell him the truth. “Whether it hurts is kind of irrelevant.”
“That’s a pretty good life motto,” he said.
- Book read
- John Green — Turtles All the Way Down
- First Line
- At the time I first realized I might be fictional, my weekdays were spent at a publicly funded institution on the north side of Indianapolis called White River High School, where I was required to eat lunch at a particular time — between 12:37 P.M. and 1:14 P.M. — by forces so much larger than myself that I couldn’t even begin to identify them.