‘Turtles All the Way Down’ by John Green is a young adult fiction story that shows the bond of friendship and portrays the struggle of a young girl whose mental illness throws her into a battle for her existence. The book begins with Aza Holmes battling her thoughts at a school lunch and ends with her saying goodbye to someone she fell in love with.
Spoiler-Free Summary
‘Turtles All the Way Down‘ Begins with sixteen-year-old Aza Holmes sitting with her friends at her school cafeteria. She trails off in her mind as the idea of a sickness overwhelms her. As her friends continue discussing, Aza freaks out further and looks up symptoms of an illness. Her best friend, Daisy, notices, but when she asks what is wrong, Aza states all is fine.
After school, Aza picks up Daisy. While switching through the radio, they talk about the bounty on Russell Pickett, a local billionaire CEO. Determined to get the money, Daisy convinces her friend to investigate with her as she learns Aza lives in the same vicinity as Russell.
Aza and Daisy prepare for their investigation and cross into Russell’s house, but they meet one of his employees. To cover themselves, Aza lies she was there to visit Davis Pickett, her old friend, and Russell’s son. The employee takes Aza to see Davis, and they have a small reunion.
Riddled with guilt, Aza tells Davis that she and her friend were investigating his father. To her surprise, Davis gives her money in return for not telling the police whatever she found. As her relationship with Davis grows, Aza’s obsessive-compulsive disorder worsens as anxiety riddles her. She lands in the hospital and later stays home after an incident.
After healing from her injuries, Aza follows her friends to an art show and comes upon a grueling realization about Russell Pickett. She alerts Davis, who gives the information to the police. He later leaves for another state.
Plot Summary
Warning – This article contains important details and spoilers
While with her friends at the school cafeteria, Aza’s mind drifts away as she starts imagining scenarios of being sick with a bacteria called Clostridium difficile. Her best friend, Daisy Ramirez, draws her attention to their conversation. Mychal, one of her friends, tells Aza about Russell Pickette, the local billionaire, who was about to be arrested for fraud when he disappeared. Mychal tells the group there is a bounty of 100,000 dollars for information that could lead to Russell’s whereabouts.
Meanwhile, Aza’s paranoia grows as she thinks about people who died from C. diff, even though they presented to the emergency room with mild symptoms. She puts her hands beneath the table and peels off the bandaid on her hands. She begins making herself bleed, thinking it will purge all the bacteria she has. Aza later leaves lunch and meets her mother, the maths teacher.
After school, Aza and Daisy discuss Russell and the cash reward in Harold. They decide to investigate his disappearance for the prize money. On getting to Aza’s house, Daisy changes into Ms. Holmes’s clothes and fishes out a boat with which she and her friend row to Russell’s estate.
On reaching Russell’s mansion, Aza gets to work by taking footage from a camera she knew Davis and his brother set up. However, while doing so, she hears a sound. To save themselves, Daisy tells Aza to act like she got lost. A man appears and asks what she is doing, and she says she is trying to see her long-time friend, Davis. The man introduces himself as Lyle and takes Aza and Daisy to Davis.
On reaching Davis, Daisy lies that Aza had a crush on him when they were younger and wanted to check up on him. After leaving the Russell mansion, Daisy tells Aza that Russell had a pet tuatara whom he gave all his fortune to should he pass away.
The next day, Aza arrives at school and meets Mychal, who asks to talk to her. Thinking he was going to ask her out, Aza rejects Mychal. However, she is embarrassed when he tells her he wants to ask Daisy out. Aza tells her friend about Mychal, and though Daisy tries avoiding him, she later sets up a double date with her, Aza, Mychal, and Davis. On the date, Aza confesses to Davis what she was doing, and he gives her the 100,000 so she does not disclose any information to the authorities. Davis’s lawyer, Simon, meets Aza and Daisy and helps them set up an account where they can put the money.
Though Simon advises the friends to spend wisely, Aza learns that Daisy has bought a new car and laptop with which she can write her fanfic. She tries cautioning her friend, but they have a slight argument. Aza meets Davis, and they share a kiss; this makes her paranoia worsen. She heads into a bathroom to wash her mouth. She meets his brother Noah, and they talk about Russell.
Aza and Davis keep meeting, and after having a date together, she returns home and starts thinking about C. diff after reading Daisy’s story. Her paranoia grows, and she heads into her bathroom, where she gulps down hand sanitizer to kill the bacteria she thinks are inside her. Aza meets Daisy the next day, and they have a heated argument because Aza feels Daisy wrote one of her characters, Ayala, after her. As they argue, Aza fails to notice a car in front of her, and she heads into a collision and passes out.
Aza wakes up in the hospital, and when she learns she will be admitted for some days, she freaks out. While in the hospital, thoughts start overwhelming her mind concerning bacteria. She then stands up and gulps on the hand sanitizer near her. Her mother tries to stop her, but she takes another sip until she pukes. Aza is then kept in the hospital longer, and her shrink, Dr. Singh, visits to ensure she takes her drugs.
After two weeks at home, Aza’s mental health improves, and she returns to school. She learns from Daisy that Mychal is having some of his work shown at an underground art gallery inside an unfinished drainage system off of Pogue’s Run. Aza realizes it was the same drainage Russell’s company was supposed to complete. While in the gallery, Aza and her friend notice a weird stench and investigate. They suspect the smell is likely from the body of Russell, and Aza tells Davis of her finding.
Davis gives the information to the authorities, and they find a body. The authorities find out it is Russell Pickette. As he had given his wealth to his pet Tuatara, Davis and his brother, Nioah, leave the mansion and head to Colorado.
Aza eventually reveals she wrote the entire story after being hospitalized for being too sick.
