Turtles All the Way Down
John Green, 2017
Young adult Contemporary fictionPsychologyRomance
An observant voice dissect's the anxiety of modern youth, navigating the disconnect between internal obsession and external performance. A close, uneasy first-person voice moves at a steady pace, mixing philosophical curiosity with the plain, repetitive pressure of anxious thought.
Feels like unease, curiosity and melancholy. About identity, society and solitude.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy contemporary YA that takes interior life seriously and lets friendship and romance sit beside philosophical questions. The anxiety and intrusive-thought passages are intense and repetitive, so they can be difficult if you want a light read.
Why read it
It offers a precise look at how a mind can loop and still seek connection, giving you a thoughtful, contemporary story about identity and care.
A page from the book
The unbearable trap of knowing you cannot stop the cycle.
Ever since I was little, I’ve pressed my right thumbnail into the finger pad of my middle finger, and so now there’s this weird callus over my fingerprint. After so many years of doing this, I can open up a crack in the skin really easily, so I cover it up with a Band-Aid to try to prevent infection. But sometimes I get worried that there already is an infection, and so I need to drain it, and the only way to do that is to reopen the wound and press out any blood that will come. Once I start thinking about splitting the skin apart, I literally cannot not do it. I apologize for the double negative, but it’s a real double negative of a situation, a bind from which negating the negation is truly the only escape. John Green.John Green often draws inspiration from complex scientific concepts, using them to explain intricate emotional states and human connections.
Books that feel like this
More by John Green
Looking for Alaska
John Green, 2005
A boy leaves Florida for an Alabama boarding school and falls in with a girl who makes every rule feel like a question worth breaking.
The Fault in Our Stars
John Green, 2012
A witty, dying teenager meets a boy who refuses to be solemn, and together they argue with oblivion, love, and the author of an unfinished book.
Paper Towns
John Green, 2008
A boy who has loved the girl next door from afar gets one wild night with her—and then she vanishes, leaving clues meant for him.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is Turtles All the Way Down for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy contemporary YA that takes interior life seriously and lets friendship and romance sit beside philosophical questions. The anxiety and intrusive-thought passages are intense and repetitive, so they can be difficult if you want a light read.
- What is Turtles All the Way Down like?
- A close, uneasy first-person voice moves at a steady pace, mixing philosophical curiosity with the plain, repetitive pressure of anxious thought. Feels like unease, curiosity and melancholy. About identity, society and solitude.
- What should I read after Turtles All the Way Down?
- If you liked Turtles All the Way Down, try The Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger), The Maid (Nita Prose) and The It Girl (Ruth Ware).
A taste of the feed
The only job that feels worth doing, and why it can't be real.
Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye, and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. I know it’s crazy.
The Catcher in the Rye · J. D. Salinger
The terrifying possibility that destruction can birth a terrible new beauty.
They’ll pull your life apart and stick it back together with vomit and shit, but it’ll still be more beautiful than you ever thought possible.
The It Girl · Ruth Ware
When a flat stops being a home and becomes a place no one enters.
No one’s been in my flat this year apart from service professionals; I’ve not voluntarily invited another human being across the threshold, except to read the meter. You’d think that would be impossible, wouldn’t you? It’s true, though. I do exist, don’t I? It often feels as if I’m not here, that I’m a figment of my own imagination. There are days when I feel so lightly connected to the earth that the threads that tether me to the planet are gossamer thin, spun sugar. A strong gust of wind could dislodge me completely, and I’d lift off and blow away, like one of those seeds in a dandelion clock.
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine · Gail Honeyman
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