Turtles All the Way Down

Kurztext / Annotation

It all begins with a fugitive billionaire and the promise of a cash reward. Turtles All the Way Down is about lifelong friendship, the intimacy of an unexpected reunion, Star Wars fan fiction, and tuatara. But at its heart is Aza Holmes, a young woman navigating daily existence within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.

Langtext

FEATURED ON 60 MINUTES and FRESH AIR

So surprising and moving and true that I became completely unstrung.    The New York Times

Named a best book of the year by: The New York Times, NPR, TIME, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Southern Living, Publishers Weekly, BookPage, A.V. Club, Bustle, BuzzFeed, Vulture, and many more!

JOHN GREEN, the acclaimed author of Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars, returns with a story of shattering, unflinching clarity in this brilliant novel of love, resilience, and the power of lifelong friendship.

Aza Holmes never intended to pursue the disappearance of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Pickett s son Davis. 

Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.

Textauszug

ONE

At the time I first realized I might be fictional, my weekdays were spent at a publicly funded institution on the north side of Indianapolis called White River High School, where I was required to eat lunch at a particular time between 12:37 p.m. and 1:14 p.m. by forces so much larger than myself that I couldn t even begin to identify them. If those forces had given me a different lunch period, or if the tablemates who helped author my fate had chosen a different topic of conversation that September day, I would ve met a different end or at least a different middle. But I was -beginning to learn that your life is a story told about you, not one that you tell.

Of course, you pretend to be the author. You have to. You think, I now choose to go to lunch, when that monotone beep rings from on high at 12:37. But really, the bell decides. You think you re the painter, but you re the canvas.

Hundreds of voices were shouting over one another in the cafeteria, so that the conversation became mere sound, the rushing of a river over rocks. And as I sat beneath fluorescent cylinders spewing aggressively artificial light, I thought about how we all believed ourselves to be the hero of some personal epic, when in fact we were basically identical organisms colonizing a vast and windowless room that smelled of Lysol and lard.

I was eating a peanut butter and honey sandwich and drinking a Dr Pepper. To be honest, I find the whole process of masticating plants and animals and then shoving them down my esophagus kind of disgusting, so I was trying not to think about the fact that I was eating, which is a form of thinking about it.

Across the table from me, Mychal Turner was scribbling in a yellow-paper notebook. Our lunch table was like a long-running play on Broadway: The cast changed over the years, but the roles never did. Mychal was The Artsy One. He was talking with Daisy Ramirez, who d played the role of my Best and Most Fearless Friend since elementary school, but I couldn t follow their conversation over the noise of all the others.

What was my part in this play? The Sidekick. I was Daisy s Friend, or Ms. Holmes s Daughter. I was somebody s something.

I felt my stomach begin to work on the sandwich, and even over everybody s talking, I could hear it digesting, all the bacteria chewing the slime of peanut butter the students inside of me eating at my internal cafeteria. A shiver convulsed through me.

Didn t you go to camp with him? Daisy asked me.

With who?

Davis Pickett, she said.

Yeah, I said. Why?

Aren t you listening? Daisy asked. I am listening, I thought, to the cacophony of my digestive tract. Of course I d long known that I was playing host to a massive collection of parasitic organisms, but I didn t much like being reminded of it. By cell count, humans are approximately 50 percent microbial, meaning that about half of the cells that make you up are not yours at all. There are something like a thousand times more microbes living in my particular biome than there are human beings on earth, and it often seems like I can feel them living and breeding and dying in and on me. I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and tried to control my breathing. Admittedly, I have some anxiety problems, but I would argue it isn t irrational to be concerned about the fact that you are a skin-encased bacterial colony.

Mychal said, His dad was about to be arrested for bribery or something, but the night before the raid he disappeared. There s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward out for him.

And you know his kid, Daisy said.

Knew him, I answered.

I watched Daisy attack

Biografische Anmerkung zu den Verfassern

John Green is the award-winning, #1 bestselling author of books including Looking for Alaska, The Fault in Our Stars, and Turtles All the Way Down. His books have received many accolades, including a Printz Medal, a Printz Honor, and an Edgar Award. John has twice been a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and was selected by TIME magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. He is also the writer and host of the critically acclaimed podcast The Anthropocene Reviewed. With his brother, Hank, John has co-created many online video projects, including Vlogbrothers and the educational channel Crash Course. He lives with his family in Indianapolis, Indiana. You can visit John online at johngreenbooks.com.

• john green
• young adult books best sellers
• the anthropocene reviewed
• john green books
• mental health books
• books about anxiety
• emotions
• ocd books
• best book club books
• teenage girls gift ideas
• books for young adults
• gifts for 14 year old boys
• young adult fiction
• young adult
• best sellers
• mental illness
• books for 13 year old girls
• mental health
• OCD
• teen books
• books for teens
• young adult books
• ya books
• books young adult
• book young adult
• best books for young adults
• books young adults
• friendship