Oh, boy. John Green’s Turtles All the Way Down was the first fiction book I’ve read about OCD, and it didn’t disappoint. It did, however, take me a month to finish—and not because it was too long or because the story dragged, but because it was a little painful to read such a perfectly rendered description of what it’s like to have unwanted thoughts on a loop. It was upsetting and triggering but beautiful, too.
Once it reached the climax about three-fourths through I put the book down and couldn’t bring myself to pick it up for another two weeks. A co-worker who’d finished it told me it would all be okay, and that I had to finish it. Of course I did! Not only did I need to know what happened to our heroine Aza, I’d been planning on writing this review.
Just a note to all of you who are currently struggling or who relate to Aza’s contamination obsessions, you may not be ready for this book yet. However, you may find that you feel less alone because you can identify with the character.
As I read I mentally noted a bazillion lines I wanted to write about here, but since Turtles All the Way Down is fiction, I want to make sure I don’t spoil anything! So I’ll keep it relatively light and say this: If you’ve ever felt like a burden to your friends, wished your parents would stop asking if you’re okay, thought you didn’t really need your medication, or had a hard time dating and getting intimate, this book will speak to you. Plus, it’s not all about OCD; there’s an intriguing mystery and some romance!
But you give your thoughts too much power, Aza. Thoughts are only thoughts. They are not you. You do belong to yourself, even when your thoughts don’t.
Those of us with OCD so often tell others how debilitating the disorder can be, trying to make people understand that it’s not a joke and that we don’t all love cleaning. John Green captures what it can mean to live with OCD, how your intrusive thoughts can eat away at you, threaten to destroy you—but somehow you get up the next morning and go about your day. Turtles All the Way Down could go a long way toward helping people understand that, yes, maybe someone with OCD can get out of bed, go to work, and keep one’s life in some semblance of order, but that doesn’t mean OCD shouldn’t be taken seriously.
