Jahanna Bolding

‘I’ve noticed you use that word a lot, crazy. And you sound angry when you say it, almost like you’re calling yourself a name.’

‘Well, everyone’s crazy these days, Dr. Singh. Adolescent sanity is so twentieth century.’ (Green 87)

This is the pitch of John Green’s most recent novel, Turtles All the Way Down. John Green is a popular Young Adult Fiction writer with a distinct talent and passion for empathizing with the deep pain that is often felt but almost always overlooked in the adolescent experience. Teenagers have issues, as the protagonist tells her therapist in the quote above. Due to this general lack of sanity, John Green’s mission in most of his novels is to empathize with and provide hope to struggling youth, and Turtles All the Way Down is no exception.

The main character, 16-year-old Aza from Indianapolis, Indiana, suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Much more complex and damaging than the stereotype of excessive hand washing or continual counting would suggest, Aza’s OCD primarily affects her through intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts are unwanted, obsessive thoughts that penetrate and occupy one’s thought processes. Though many people deal with unwanted thoughts, intrusive thoughts in relation to OCD are not easy to dismiss, and Aza finds herself performing almost any ritual she can, regardless of how irrational it seems, in an attempt to silence the anxieties. In Aza’s own words,

Admittedly, I have some anxiety problems, but I would argue it isn’t irrational to be concerned about the fact that you are a skin-encased bacterial colony. (Green 3)

Most of the plot is concerned with Aza’s road to recovery and stability, which, though never fulfilled, is hoped for.

Aza is accompanied from the beginning of the narrative by her best friend Daisy, a loyal, Star Wars loving chatterbox who provides a fair balance to Aza’s reclusive and anxiety-ridden nature. As an intriguing story surfaces about Russell Pickett, a famous billionaire who is suddenly missing, Aza and Daisy play detective in their free time in an attempt to split the $100,000 reward between them. Think how an extra $50,000 could aid them in paying college tuition in a few years, right? Conveniently, Aza was childhood sweethearts with Pickett’s son, Davis, whom she still frequently thinks about fondly. Daisy convinces Aza that, with an opportunity like this, their only option is for Aza to reignite the childhood romance with Davis in the hopes of gaining insider knowledge that could lead to the once-in-a-lifetime reward.

Aza is hesitant, but eventually acquiesces to Daisy’s demands and begins to pursue Davis, a lonely, depressed teenager who struggles with finding hope and delight in existence, despite his privileged upbringing. Davis harbors bitterness towards his neglectful father and secretly wishes that his father is never found so that Davis and his brother can be free from his father’s apathetic influence. Though perhaps a bit exaggerated, Green certainly touches on the tensions of the parent-child relationship that forms in the adolescent years. Green plants in the lives of his characters’ situations common in the adolescent experience (strained relationship with parents, an extreme amount of time spent on the Internet, first encounters with romance and sexuality, etc.) in order to establish trust with his young audience. This established trust and camaraderie allow him to speak what he believes to be truth and hope into their lives as an experienced elder.

Thus, in an attempt to craft a realistic and modern teenage-friendly setting, Aza and Davis initiate a rather standard adolescent relationship: flirtatious texting, kissing under the moonlight (before 11:00 curfew, of course), and meaningful face-to-face conversations about parents, college, and the purpose of human existence. Classic, right? Alas, no. Aza’s OCD dramatically worsens at the prospect of intimacy, which drives her away from Davis. Davis yearns for human connection to drag him out of the pits of despair but clearly cannot find that in Aza’s company. Eventually, Aza is hospitalized for a dramatic car wreck and is forced to regulate her intake of medication. Davis discovers (due to Aza and Daisy’s sleuthing) that his father is dead, and grieves the loss of the father that he resented. The two cordially part ways.

Though Aza and Davis’s relationship certainly takes a secondary position in the novel to Aza’s own personal struggles with mental health, John Green uses the relationship to emphasize a deep human longing that begins to surface in adolescence: the desire to be fully known and fully loved. Both Aza and Davis are all too familiar with their own struggles and fears about themselves and their lives – but what brings them together in the midst of the darkness is a longing for human affirmation in the face of insufficiency and brokenness. However, unfortunately, part of what tears them apart is their inability to bear the weight of each other’s struggles, as Davis realizes Aza’s inability to sustain a face-to-face relationship:

It makes me feel like you only like me at a distance. I need to be liked up close. (Green 254)

The desire to be fully known and fully loved is intensely human – and yet human attempts to satiate this longing always fall short in the end. Though John Green does not provide any kind of divine answer to this desire, he does identify the problem, which is half of the battle.

So, in the midst of depression, obsession, and isolation, what hope does Green attempt to offer? I believe Green’s mission in Turtles All the Way Down is to offer hope of freedom (by way of multiple vague philosophical affirmations) in the midst of Aza’s condition. For example, one of the questions that Aza ponders from page one is the issue of individual will. As a victim of OCD, Aza feels that

Your life is a story told about you, not one that you tell. (Green 1)

I mean, I don’t control my own thoughts, so they’re not really mine. I don’t decide if I’m sweating or get cancer or C. diff or whatever, so my body isn’t really mine. I don’t decide any of that – outside forces do. I’m a story they’re telling. I am circumstances. (Green 165-166)

Aza literally feels imprisoned because of her condition. John Green, speaking through the voice of Aza’s therapist, offers hope and health by stating,

Thoughts are only thoughts. They are not you. You do belong to yourself, even when your thoughts don’t. (Green 166)

A large part of Green’s mission in this novel is empowering those suffering from mental illness, especially teenagers whose mental health is constantly disregarded or marginalized because of their age. Eventually, Green cries out through Aza’s story that time lends the gift of perspective, even if it does not lend the gift of healing. He hints at Aza’s future and discloses that, despite turbulent mental health and major life changes (marriage, children), Aza still exists, and she realizes that:

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. (Green 285)

The retrospective insight that Aza gains when she looks back at this period in her life reveal that, though her life will never be perfect and she will never be fully healthy, she has tasted love, and to her, that is enough. How exactly Green defines love, I do not know. But, he completes his mission by inspiring the prospect of some kind of hope for the future in a dark and dismal world of illness, instability, and insufficiency by telling his audience (through Aza’s voice): “But you don’t know any of that yet” (Green 286).

In other words, hang in there. Life goes on.

Green’s wit, whimsy, and wisdom provide an adequate balance to his dark honesty in Turtles. His depiction of the adolescent perspective is complicated, but realistic, as usual. Though the applications of his argument are a bit shallow, because no human love or hope will ever suffice the great longings in our souls for healing and restoration, Green attempts to instill optimism in the youth, which is no small or insignificant feat. The whirlwind of emotional honesty and turbulence of Turtles All the Way Down will leave you reeling, but, in the end, will spit you out with a more informed and empathetic perspective of mental illness through the lens of adolescence, and is definitely worth the read.