Title: Turtles All the Way Down
Author: John Green
Publisher: Penguin Random House
ISBN:
9780241335437
Genre: Fiction, Young Adult
Pages: 286
Source: Flipkart Review Program
Rating: 4.5/5
He’s trying to treat you like you’re
normal and you’re trying to respond like you’re normal but everyone involved
knows you are definitely not normal. Normal people can kiss if they want
to kiss. Normal people don’t sweat like you. Normal people choose their
thoughts like they choose what to watch on TV. Everyone in this
conversation knows you’re a freak.
When it comes to YA genre, John Green
hits the place. There are very few authors who could place themselves into that
genre with such grace. I loved how John Green captured the emotions of teenagers;
he doesn’t depict this Y-generation teens any less. They read. They Think. They
Suffer. They question to themselves about their existence. John Green put them on journey and how they trying to cope up with various situations is so relatable to me. Love, Parting, illness, Loss are the key factors of
Green’s novel, Still I like how he maintained the serenity amidst them.
Frankly speaking, I was so excited when
I first heard about his latest, Turtles All the Way Down, and I’m glad, It
didn’t disappoint me a bit. With Turtles All the Way Down, John Green presented
a quaint character, 16-year-old girl, Aza who has been suffering from anxiety
disorder. It leads her into many behavioral situations, for instance, she doesn’t
like her own body, she obsessed with a finger’s wound, and she seems worried all
the time about microbes present in her body. It is quite different to read how
John Green depicts a new whole world, running inside Aza’s head. The way she
thinks in repetitive mode, readers feel those indefinable emotions instantly.
To be honest, it is not a fun read,
as John Green’s other novels were, yet I found the plot so absorbing that I
finished it into two sittings.
Basically the story begins with some
mystery, Russell Pickett, father of Davis, (Aza’s childhood friend) he has gone
missing and big reward money drew attention of Daisy, Aza’s best friend. Daisy
and Aza both decide to search Mr. Pickett, and how this decision has been changed
their life eventually.
During this search, Aza begins to
feel attraction towards Davis, who is already troubled with sudden disappearance
of his father, John Green crafted that part beautifully, how Davis calculating
the absence of his father was so consuming, On the other hand, Aza comes to
know about the despair Davis feels in spite of being rich. There is so many
secrets behind Davis’s Big mansion.
Although Plot of Turtles All the Way
Down revolves around this mystery, Yet John Green didn’t forget to focus on his
main interest that is Friendship, quirky moments between lovers, memorable pinches
of words, and small life lessons, as Green writes “True terror is not being
scared, it is not having a choice on that matter” and “I is the hardest
word to define” I have underlined whole book, just to read them over and
over.
And the cover of Turtles All the Way
Down hides something; you get to know once you start exploring the book. Give
your love to this novel, because John Green went deeper to decipher those
unspoken emotions of teenagers and presented to us, I was not even sure about if
they existed before. Recommended.
READER’s MOMENT
We never really talked much or even
looked at each other, but it didn't matter because we were looking at the same
sky together, which is maybe even more intimate than eye contact anyway. I
mean, anybody can look at you. It's quite rare to find someone who sees the
same world you see.
The worst part of being truly alone is
you think about all the times you wished that everyone would just leave you be.
Then they do, and you are left being, and you turn out to be terrible company.
One of the challenges with
pain--physical or psychic--is that we can really only approach it through
metaphor. It can't be represented the way table or a body can. In some ways, pain
is the opposite of language.
I thought, lying there, that I might
love him for the rest of my life. We did love each other—maybe we never said
it, and maybe love was never something we were in, but it was something I felt.
I loved him, and I thought, maybe I will never see him again, and I'll be stuck
missing him, and isn't that so terrible.
You remember your first love because
they show you, prove to you, that you can love and be loved, that nothing in
this world is deserved except for love, that love is both how you become a
person, and why
ABOUT AUTHOR
John Green's first novel, Looking for Alaska, won
the 2006 Michael L. Printz Award presented by the American Library Association.
His second novel, An Abundance of Katherines, was a 2007 Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book and a finalist for the Los
Angeles Times Book Prize. His next novel, Paper Towns is a New York Times
bestseller and won the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best YA Mystery. In January
2012, his most recent novel, The Fault In Our Stars, was met with wide critical acclaim, unprecedented in Green's career. The book
also topped the New York Times Children's Paperback Bestseller list for several
weeks. Green has also coauthored a book with David Levithan called, Will Grayson Will Grayson published in 2010. The film rights for all his books, with the exception
of Will Grayson Will Grayson, have been optioned to major Hollywood Studios.
