Full disclosure, I wasn't a fan of The Fault in Our Stars. I wasn't expecting to like this book very much.

I wound up loving it. The characters in this book feel real and authentic. Their arguments and obsessions and worries and quirks all feel real. Even though a couple of the characters use more elevated vocabulary than your typical teenager might use, they weren't as over the top as other John Green characters can tend to be. I was also glad to see that the main character wasn't a manic pixie dream girl, as some of Green's main characters can be described to be.

Turtles All the Way Down follows Aza, a high school junior with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and her best friend Daisy. The case of a missing local billionaire, and more specifically the hundred thousand dollar reward for information leading to his location, has intrigued Daisy and Aza agrees to help in attempting to earn that reward. After all, Aza knows the billionaire's son from when they were went to middle school summer camp. That's got to help somehow, right?

Aza's mental illness is significant in the story because it is significant in her life, but it doesn't drive the action of the story and I enjoyed that distinction. Many of us may not have OCD, but I am willing to bet many of us have invasive thoughts and it was helpful to see that they don't have to rule someone's life. The questions that came from this, such as "what am I if I'm not my thoughts" were provoking and I'll be thinking of them long after closing the cover on the book.

It was also wonderful to hear instances of topics covered in John Green's podcast, The Anthropocene Reviewed, in this book. It was that podcast that convinced me to give Green's books another chance. I'm glad I did.