Periodically, she even drinks hand sanitizer. The novel’s narrator is Aza, a lower-middle-class high schooler who suffers from profound anxiety - in particular, an obsession with intestinal germs. The epigraph is from Schopenhauer: “Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills.” At first blush, such heady philosophizing seems appropriate to the thematic concerns of the novel, whose plot revolves around two intersecting - and emotionally difficult - stories. Or, as the brothers put it, they’re attempting to raise “nerdy to the power of awesome.”ĭespite this generally optimistic focus, Turtles All the Way Down strikes a startlingly somber note.

And Green seems to be a fun kind of guy, someone whose YouTube channel, the Vlogbrothers, on which he and his brother Hank exchange glimpses into their daily lives, is filled with humor and occasional sociopolitical commentary. More importantly, perhaps, Green has tried to foster young people’s own content creation through the now seemingly defunct Nerdfighters project, and he actively advocates for civic-mindedness and charitable giving through organizations such as the Foundation to Decrease World Suck, which is “100% volunteer operated and exists solely for the purpose of raising funds to be donated to other non-profit organizations.” There’s much to like here. He doesn’t shy away from big questions either, as The Fault in Our Stars and its teens-dying-of-cancer-but-still-in-love narrative suggests. While this novel, along with other Green titles, has been criticized for deploying “manic pixie dream girl” stereotypes (female characters whose primary purpose is to further the self-exploration of their male partners), I have admired how Green generally takes young people seriously, representing their (admittedly often white and middle-class suburban) concerns with decency and care.

Paper Towns, one of my favorites, depicts a young man whose attraction to an enigmatic (and recently vanished) young woman leads him to undertake a physical and psychological journey of self-discovery. His prose is clean, and his characters are often compelling. Green has justly made a name for himself with poignant tales of adolescents worrying over their place in the world.

But after a nearly three-year hiatus, he has now offered us a new YA novel, Turtles All the Way Down - one that has frankly befuddled me, prompting me to question Green’s motivation for writing his books. FOLLOWING SEVERAL MAJOR SUCCESSES, including his 2012 novel The Fault in Our Stars and its 2014 film adaptation, as well as the 2015 adaptation of his 2008 novel Paper Towns, John Green seemed to be taking a bit of a break.

Turtles all the way down summary