Turtles All the Way Down

There's so much to say. This was my first John Green book and, according to my reading buddies who fancy his other novels, it's also his most ‘non-textbook John Green' effort (which will be a cool thought to grapple, should I pick up another one of his books in the future) It's an interesting place to start!One of the first things I loved about this book is that the narrative isn't what it seemed. Around six chapters in I began wondering “The ‘story' seems quite plain...I think the real story of this book is Aza's mental journey” - which I believe to be true, for all intensive purposes. I tend to read more non-fiction, and some of those particular book endeavors have covered mental illnesses, many of which we read about in this book. [b:Turtles All the Way Down 35504431 Turtles All the Way Down John Green https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1503002776s/35504431.jpg 21576687] seems like a faithful representation of someone in the darkest of cognitive corners, and there isn't an inch of glorification about such matters, which is refreshing in an age where mental illness terms are thrown around loosely, and cheapened by shallow self-diagnoses and general disregard for the gravity of such conditions.When my thoughts spiraled, I was in the spiral, and of it. And I wanted to tell him that the idea of being in a feeling gave language to something I couldn't describe before, created a form for it, but I couldn't figure out how to say any of that out loud I felt quite emotional at several points in this book, as one would when one reads about the inner dwellings of a lost, confused adolescent in a constant thought spiral. It brought things up; many of which I thought I'd long since buried. The quote above could easily describe the thought worlds of millions of people, regardless of their age - and as Green wrote I felt like the spotlight was on my mind, both how it was ‘back then' and now.I love that he gave Aza the license to entertain often disastrous thoughts, but also managed to push back against any overindulgence (several times throughout the book, really) - perhaps most beautifully when Dr. Singh corrects Aza's mentioning of René Descartes' famous philosophical proposition Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am), as she mentions the often ignored precursory statement: I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am - rendering the extensional chaos of the phrase with a layer of ease, humanizing the entire thought experiment (and relieving the burdened mind with temporary surety of existence)Argh. There's so much to unpack. But for now, I shall put this book down and continue to reflect on how it's helped my own thinking about a great many things (had to put a Star Wars quote in there somewhere for Daisy) and how extraordinarily John Green manages to capture the chaos of growing up with some lessons for surviving a world which is just as chaotic as Aza's mind!