Vomit-inducing hand sanitiser scenes aside though, i really enjoyed this book. I listened to it on CD in my car and it got to the point where I was actually looking forward to going to work so I could listen to some more of my book.
I really felt for Aza. i used to think (like a lot of people) that I was a 'bit OCD' because I like things to be neat and find quiet pleasure in having the bottom edge of my keyboard lined perfectly parallel with the edge of my desk. However, after reading Turtles All The Way Down, I have discovered that I am nowhere near having 'real' OCD. Aza suffers from anxiety and OCD and I really mean suffers. She is fully aware that her obsessions are absolutely barking, but she is governed by them nonetheless. She can't function in a normal relationship, she drives her friends mad and actually injures herself as a slave to her compulsions. It sounded absolutely miserable.
Obviously there are going to be comparisons to The Fault In Our Stars, a book that I enjoyed immensely, and on the face of it I guess you could say that John Green is now doing for mental health what five years ago he did for cancer (Cynical Claire says: Make a shit ton of cash from it). But when you look a bit deeper, this is actually a much more thoughtful book than TFIOS.
TFIOS was a romance; a navel-gazey, teen romance with an added sprinkling of cancer and death. TATWD is not a romance. Aza cannot function in a romatic relationship because she is terrified of the eighty million microbes that get transferred to your mouth when you tongue-kiss another person. This is a book about a person trying desperately to navigate her way in the world when she is literally her own worst enemy.
And I know everyone's biggest gripe is going to be 'Oh, teenagers in real life don't talk like that!' Well, I know they don't. No one in real life talks like the characters in a John Green book. In fact, scrub that. No one in real life talks like a character in any book.
Have you ever had to transcribe a real life conversation word- for-word? When you look at it on paper it just looks bizarre. It's all pauses and 'Um's and random words trailing off ...... When we're talking, only 7% of a conversation is made up of words. The rest is body language, tone of voice. Hell, I've conducted entire conversations with some of my best friends using only grunts.
And I don't understand why people get so bent out of shape about conversational realism anyway. Who cares about realism? We don't get out of our boxes about the lack of realism in other books. Guess what? In real life, teenagers don't become demon hunters either. Or lead rebellions against corrupt dystopian governments. Or travel halfway across the country in a post-apocalyptic landscape to find their baby brother. Or meet their One True Love in high school. Or have psychic powers. I don't care. I read books to be entertained. I have enough realism in real life.
So, no. People in real life don't talk like the people in a John Green book. But I am thankful that people in real life write like John Green does, because this book was a joy.
5 stars