“No one ever says good-bye unless they want to see you again,” (Turtles All The Way Down, John Green, 286). Turtles All The Way Down is first and foremost a book about mental illness. The plot does consist of a separate story though. The book starts with two best friends learning about a huge award for finding a missing person. When their search leads them to old friends, both of their lives are changed. Aza Holmes - the main character and storyteller - struggles with OCD, anxiety, and probably other mental illnesses. While there is an intense plot that consists of murder, money, and relationships, the most important part of the plot is Aza’s struggle with herself. We get a feeling of what it’s like in her head, and throughout the book understand how her mind changes. As the plot goes up and down, how does her mind manage the whirlpool of her own life. In Turtles All The Way Down John Green manages to give us a mystery, coming-of-age, and romance all in one. I originally chose this book because I thought it would be interesting to see the world through the eyes of someone who struggles with a deep mental illness. I was surprised to learn that I could relate to Aza more than I thought I would be able to. I feel as though a part of this is the style of writing. By having Aza tell the story, we get an insight into what her head is like. It was easier to understand her story, because we spent all of our time in her head. This also made the end more impactful. By the end of the story it is revealed that the story was being written down by an Aza Holmes who is older. That shift in perspective at the end of the story was extremely powerful, and it made you feel not quite sad, but somberly nostalgic. I can think of two main challenges I faced while reading this book. The first was understanding Aza. While I could relate to her symptoms, it was hard to understand the cause. It took a while for me to accept that there wasn’t always a pattern in what made Aza spiral. The other challenge for me was to keep reading even when it was difficult. By that I mean that John Green didn’t shy away from cruel reality. While it is innately comforting to me, it also meant that it occasionally hit a little close to home. To follow the thought of hitting close to home. I felt that there were moments that were easy to connect with. The easiest thoughts to connect to were parts about “thought spirals.” Essentially, these are moments where Aza’s brain was like two people. The logical part of her brain would say one thing to calm her down, but the other part of her brain would force her to think about the thing she was worried about. While I worry about much different things than Aza did, I felt as though that was a good way to describe my own thoughts sometimes. A thought spiral that starts to spin faster when you’re worried. If there was one moment that really resonated with me, it was when Aza’s best friend Daisy is telling a story. The story goes: “a scientist is talking to a crowd about the earth and how it was created and evolved, and at the end of his lecture this woman stands up and says ‘that's nice and all sir, but the earth is actually just a plane resting on the back of a giant turtle’ and the scientist asks her ‘well then what is the giant turtle standing on?’ The woman replies ‘another giant turtle’ and the scientist then asks what that giant turtle is standing on, and the woman replies ‘you don’t understand, it’s turtles all the way down.’ After telling the story Daisy says to Aza ‘You’re trying to find the turtle at the bottom of the pile, but that’s not how it works,’ Aza replies ‘Because it’s turtles all the way down,’” (Green 244-245). I felt as though this was an excellent way to end the arc of these characters, because they finally shared a second of understanding. This story finally brought the book full circle. I realized that I couldn’t ‘solve’ Aza’s mental illness, because it isn’t something that can be fixed. There isn’t a logical explanation to mental illness or life in general. You can’t get to the bottom of the problem, because it’s turtles all the way down. By Grace B.
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AuthorSTenth grade students at Decorah High School share how they're reading outside of their own experiences and how it has changed them. Categories
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November 2022
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