This is a book I have desperately needed for years, but especially in the last year or so. I don't have words right now for what reading it and seeing this piece of myself that I am constantly fighting on the page means to me. Right now all I can think to say is thank you, John. Thank you so much. 
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 I rushed out to pick up my copy of Turtles All the Way Down after work the day it released. I got home, I curled up in bed, and I read the entire thing in a single sitting, which is not something I do very often these days. Certainly not with a book I started reading at 8PM on a Tuesday. I just couldn't put it down for more than a minute or 2 at a time. I finished it at 1 in the morning, and I've been struggling to figure out how to write a review for it ever since. 
 Before I start I do want say that the book is ownvoices for mental illness rep, specifically OCD. The rep is fantastic, as one might expect, but it is also incredibly honest, to the point that some passages could be triggering if you're not prepared. Trigger warning for: 
 Disordered eating - No eating disorder exactly, but eating does make Aza anxious. 
 Self-harm: Aza uses her finger to repeatedly re-open a callous on her finger out of fear it may be infected. 
 Anxiety / Panic attack: The book is 1st person POV, so you are in Aza's head through all her panic attacks and thought spirals. You get both her rational thoughts and the irrational panicked thoughts she cannot control. 
 Anxiety about illness: This is Aza's primary anxiety trigger. Her thought spirals almost all have to do with her fear of getting a deadly illness, usually C Diff. 
 Depersonalization: Aza spends a lot of time worrying that she isn't real. 
 That said, I will not being going into detail about anything triggering in this review, so you are safe to continue reading. 
 Turtles All the Way Down follows Aza Holmes, a 16 year old struggling with OCD. On the surface the book is sort of about Aza getting dragged into a hunt for her childhood friend's billionaire father who is on the run from the law. But at it's heart the book it really about Aza navigating life with her mental illness. It is about how mental illness impacts both the people living with them and their relationships with their friends and family. Honestly, not that much happens in terms of major events. The plot is very much based on internal conflict and character relationships. But it never feels slow. I never felt like I was just waiting for the next big thing to happen, because in Aza's mind anything can become a big thing. That's the nature of her mental illness-even the most mundane tasks can become panic inducing events. So even when she's just at school, or just hanging out with friends, that tense feeling of never knowing when something might happen never quite fades. 
 While that constant tension definitely makes the book hard to put down, it isn't the reason I read it in a single sitting. I stayed up all night reading Turtles All the Way Down because it was the first time I had ever seen mental illness portrayed so honestly in a book. It was the first time I had ever seen that piece of myself reflected in a character. I do not have OCD, my illnesses are not quite as debilitating as Aza's, and I don't even panic about the same things as her for the most part, but the descriptions of her anxiety and her thought spirals were still so familiar and hit so close to home. I kept having to close the book and just sit with that feeling of "Yes, exactly. It's not just me. Someone else gets it." I got a little choked up for the first time only 9 pages in, and the feeling was pretty consistent throughout the entire book. We are in such desperate need of more ownvoices mental illness stories. Turtles All the Way Down is raw, and honest, and horrifying, and beautiful and so much more all at once. And it turned out to be exactly what I needed. 
 Read my full review at www.Katsyxo.com