Does John Green really understand teenagers?

John Green is arguably the most popular author in the young adult (YA) genre, but does he really capture what it’s like to be a teenager in these times? The first book I ever read by Green was “The Fault in Our Stars” in August of 2021. I picked “The Fault in Our Stars” as my first book by Green because it was the book that skyrocketed his career back in 2012 when it first came out and was later adapted into a movie two years later — though I wasn’t as in love with it as I thought I would be. After the public fell in love with Green’s new book, they looked into his backlog and found his debut novel, “Looking for Alaska,” which was later adapted into a mini-series 14 years after the book’s release in 2005. This was the second book by Green I read later in 2021. I loved his writing style and most of the characters, and I felt that Green inserted himself into the main character, Miles. When I picked up Green’s most recent YA book from 2017, “Turtles All the Way Down,” though, I was really blown away.

“Turtles All the Way Down” is about 16-year-old Aza Holmes who lives in Indianapolis, Indiana, and struggles with OCD, which often affects her fear of the human microbiome. We learn from her “Star Wars” fan-fiction writing best friend, Daisy, that Aza’s old friend Davis’s billionaire dad has gone missing and if anyone finds or has information about the disappearance they will receive up to $100,000. Aza and Daisy immediately embark on a journey to find the billionaire and get the reward while also dealing with relationships with old friends and trying to understand their own mental health. “Turtles All the Way Down” is a part of the young adult (YA) genre, which is geared toward teenage readers with stories about the experiences of teen characters. While focusing on mental health — which has been a huge topic in YA literature in recent years — this book also adds bits of mystery and shows the readers a sincere love between friends.

Of the three out of six John Green books I have read, “Turtles All the Way Down” is definitely my favorite because of the different types of relationships it portrays instead of just showing a romantic relationship between a boy and girl as most of Green’s books do.

Although this book is my favorite by Green, I think the biggest mistake it makes is that the description makes it seem like it is another boring young adult mystery when it’s so much more than that. The description is short, and the sentence that takes up most of the first paragraph is, “Aza never intended to pursue the mystery of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her best friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate.” Throughout the book, Green provides small details that keep the mystery aspect going. However, it seems that Green’s idea of making a book with a focus on mental health had a bigger impact on what he actually wrote about than a book solely focused on a mystery. Personally, I love how the book turned out. I think it has a good amount of mystery while mainly focusing on the part of the book that addresses mental illness. But, other readers might be going into the book thinking it’s a thrilling mystery with twists throughout and characters who are more interesting than other young adult mystery characters. They may believe that the plot is falling flat halfway through, but to others, it’s just getting started. When you actually read “Turtles All the Way Down,” you get a story about a girl who is trying to understand her friends and herself.

Green says in a discussion guide at the end of the book that he wrote this book for the sole purpose of showing love between friends instead of between couples, as he has done in his previous books. I think he does this extremely well. Throughout the book Green continues to show how Aza and Daisy have been friends for a long time by showing how they have a restaurant they always go to and bringing up old birthday presents they have given each other. Green also shows how Aza and Daisy go through the same friendship problems people experience in real life. Despite their long friendship, Aza and Daisy don’t always understand each other and they don’t tell each other everything — which results in them getting upset with each other for not knowing details they never previously mentioned. This is a prime example of what miscommunication is actually like in real life between friends and shows that Green knows that teenagers, or friends in general, don’t always understand each other no matter how long they’ve been friends for. This made me believe that Green came into this book knowing that he was going to write about the problems friends go through, and I feel that he executed that perfectly. Although I’ve never had a friendship with the dynamic Aza and Daisy have, I found myself relating to the problems they were facing together. 

While Green depicted Aza and Daisy’s relationship in particular perfectly, my favorite thing about the book is how well Green portrayed all of its characters. Since the book is told from Aza’s point of view, we see that she actually embodies how a real person thinks. We see her thoughts on how she feels like she can’t contribute anything to conversations and how she re-thinks her opinions based on what others respond with. Daisy, Aza’s best friend, is shown to be the generic best friend who’s always there to support the main character and is happy all the time. But, as the book progresses, Green develops her personality more to show how she really feels. I’ve rarely ever seen the best friend of the main character get upset with how the main character is treating them or how they feel about their own home life.

 We also see a lot of Davis’, the billionaire’s son, his home life, and things that are special to him. We learn that Davis has a Superman toy that he’s had since he was a kid and how it’s always been special to him. Several times throughout the book Aza looks at Davis’ blog where he shares quotes he relates to at the moment and vague descriptions of what he’s thinking about. The character development of Davis and Daisy — through their personalities, interests, and hobbies — shows how much thought Green put into not only the main character but the side characters too. This had the effect on me that Green wanted the readers to feel what all the characters felt instead of just knowing Aza and her feelings and interests.

Through the exemplary descriptions of the characters, Green does an excellent job of writing this book. The book is mostly in the first person, but during a few select scenes, Green uses either the second or third person. The scenes Green chooses to write in a different perspective are the scenes that are the most meaningful to Aza. For example, when Aza is reflecting near the end of the book she thinks using different perspectives: “I know a shrink would say, Write it down, how you got here. So you would, (and) in writing (it) down you realize, love is not a tragedy or a failure, but a gift.” Green is using different perspectives to try and make the readers feel what Aza is feeling or understand some of her experiences throughout the book.

In all of Green’s books, you can see that he puts a small part of himself in them. In “Looking for Alaska,” he reflects on his life at boarding school. In “The Fault in Our Stars,” he draws inspiration from one of his late friends. And in this book, he brings his thoughts and feelings about mental health into it. In doing this Green seems to understand what it’s like to be a teenager in these times since he realizes that the school system today is more open to talking about taking care of your mental health and keeping your good friends close. This book is definitely the best by Green so far because he’s writing about something that a larger group of people can relate to since it’s not about going to a specific type of school and is instead about friendship and battling mental illness. Out of 5, I would give “Turtles All the Way Down” 4.5/5 stars.