Turtles All The Way Down

[olivermoss]

I'd never read anything bu John Green before. Most of his books just don't sound interesting to me at all. Then I heard him describe this book by talking about of the trope of famous detectives having OCD as a superpower, but as someone with OCD he wanted to write a mystery where the main character experiences OCD as he does. Yeah, that premise really drew my attention.

I thought it was great book, and I only rarely can even tolerate teen coming of age books. There was a lot I liked about the sensibility of it. There was a point I thought he was going to lose me, do some typical writer shit, but then I was actually impressed with how things played out.

It's a great book and I enjoyed it, but I don't know if I'll read anything else by him. Also, I may or may not check out the movie that just came out of the book.

I consumed it in audiobook format and the performance was great and really suited the book.

I skimmed some reviews and most of the complaints about the book and the narration are people who don't get what is going on. It's a look at his experience of OCD, in the format of a gender swapped modern AU Sherlock Holmes story. It's meta about detective stories. It's like some readers opened a tin of Cinnamon Drops and are upset they aren't mints, but to be fair the summary on the back of the book doesn't describe it that way. I got a much better description listening to the author talk about it when he was a guest on Karen Puzzles.

Comments

[evilinsanemonkey]

Turtles All the Way Down was my favorite John Green book that I've read (Admittedly it's only the 3rd I've read all the way through).

[olivermoss]

Any others you might actually recc, especially for someone who tends to hate coming of age books?

[evilinsanemonkey]

The other two I've read all the way through were Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars. I really liked The Fault in Our Stars.

Looking for Alaska isn't bad, per se, but Green's books tend to fly a little too close to manic pixie dream girl for me (in the case of The Fault in Our Stars it's more manic pixie dream boy...).

[olivermoss]

Those might not be my speed, but maybe I'll try someday. With The Fault In Our Stars it's a book I've heard so many takes on the idea of reading is exhausting. Maybe in like a decade when I've forgotten some of the discourse

[evilinsanemonkey]

That's fair!