This is a John Green book everything that can be an emotional gut punch will beġ8. I would laugh that Aza’s dad’s go-to cassette is Missy Elliott but every time I drive my dad’s car after him he’s in the middle of a different Taylor Swift albumġ7. It’s quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see.” I’m going to try my best to not just make this entire post quotes from the book but they’re just… so good…ġ4. It just keeps tightening, infinitely.” Ughhhhġ2. “The thing about a spiral is, if you follow it inward, it never actually ends. You know, I was not expecting there to be so much bacteriaġ0. Lol I didn’t even make it a paragraph without highlighting somethingĨ. This is gonna get real existential real quick isn’t itħ. Is it about turtles? Who cares it’s John GreenĦ. Full disclosure I have not even read the synopsis of this bookģ. So that’s what we’re working with, everyone. PAPER TOWNSis my favorite John Green book. I promise you will do both.Īnd-okay, I’ve just got to say it. How could I not?! It feels like it’s been forever since the last John Green book and, you know what? Why not devastate myself emotionally? So feel free to read through, read along, gauge if you want to read it, or laugh and cry with me if you already have. She states “I’m not gonna un-have this is what I mean” (155).My TBR is practically as tall as I am at this point, but you KNOW I had to drop everything last week to start TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN. When Aza tells Davis that she has thought spirals she cannot get out of, she also tells him that it doesn’t get better. What does it look like to be a friend to someone who cannot express what they need or find a language for their pain? Whenyou’re the one in indescribable pain, what do you need most?ġ0. After seeing Aza spiral, Daisy utters aloud, “I wish I understood it… Like, does it help to be reassuring or is itbetter to worry with you? Is there anything that makes it better?” (131). What are some other myths you have heard or observed regarding men- tal illness? Did this book challenge or change your perceptions of mental illness? If so, how?ĩ. Aza identifies one common myth about mental illness when she states, “Madness, in my admittedly limitedexperience, is accompanied by no superpowers being mentally unwell doesn’t make you loftily intelligent anymore than having the flu does” (133). What role do others have in pulling us outside of ourselves and into the present? Where, who, or what do you turn to when you seek to feel grounded?Ĩ. Aza states that often, nothing could deliver her from fear, but that Daisy helped straighten something inside her so she wasn’t walking on the “ever-tightening spiral” (66).

Turtles all the way down