Sixteen-year-old Aza Holmes lives much of her life inside her own head, trapped in tightening "thought spirals" of intrusive fear and compulsion. When a local billionaire, Russell Pickett, vanishes just before his arrest — leaving a hundred-thousand-dollar reward — Aza's irrepressible best friend Daisy talks her into playing detective, mostly because Aza happens to know the fugitive's son, Davis, from years ago.
What begins as an amateur investigation becomes something quieter and more personal: a tentative romance with Davis, a strained and very real friendship with Daisy, and Aza's ongoing struggle to be a good daughter and friend while her own mind keeps interrupting her life.
Drawing on John Green's own experience with OCD and anxiety, Turtles All the Way Down is an unusually honest portrait of living with mental illness — one that refuses an easy cure and insists that a difficult mind is still a life worth living. It debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list and became one of the most acclaimed YA novels of its decade.