Traditionally here on Fangirl Fury, I like to give you guys a quick summary of the book I’m reviewing. However, I find that its best to go into Turtles All the Way Down without knowing too much. I found that in its preliminary hype days it was promoted for its billionaire-gone-missing mystery element, but that’s definitely not the entirety of Aza’s story. While Turtles All the Way Down highlights friendships, family, romance, and the life of the American teenager, it most of all sheds light on mental health and what it’s like to live with mental illness.

My Rating: 5/5 Stars

My Thoughts:

There are three things I am most definitely proud of myself for doing when it came to Turtles All the Way Down:

1. I bought a signed copy of the book (bonus points for supporting my local indie bookstore)
2. I AVOIDED SPOILERS! Almost all of the bloggers that I follow on social media have read Turtles All the Way Down before me, and kudos to me for not clicking on John Green’s reddit for questions and answers about the book
3. I read the book within a month of its release! Yes, I read throughout the busy-ness that is my university life , but I thought I would pick up Turtles All the Way Down during winter break where I could really devote time to reading it. But after picking up a copy and seeing many positive reviews, I knew I had to read the book ASAP.

Since it was my goal to avoid spoilers while reading, I am going to keep my thoughts on the book as spoiler-free as possible! As you might be able to tell from my 5 out of 5 star rating, I absolutely loved Turtles All the Way Down. I really like John Green as an author (there’s only two of his books that I haven’t been crazy about) and as a person. Like many, I am so happy that he has a new book out in the world.

Like I said above, Turtles All the Way Down incorporates a variety of elements, but the most important of them all is the focus on Aza’s mental health. Aza lives in fear that she’ll contract C. diff and this fear affects how she goes about her life and routines. One of the most successful aspects of Turtles All the Way Down is how through Aza’s narration, we are able to experience what it’s like to live with mental illness. I think what really aided this aspect was how real Aza’s life feels: she’s a high school student (there are many moments in the book where she’s texting her friends or actually doing schoolwork), she has a great female-to-female friendship with her Chuck E. Cheese employee of a best friend, Daisy, and the two spend many nights at Applebee’s talking about school and Star Wars (let’s be honest, I was sold on this book once I read that Applebee’s was Daisy and Aza’s go-to spot). We do have the whole billionaire-gone-missing element and Davis, but I thought that side of the storyline provided a nice juxtaposition between Aza and Davis. Yes, they come from different class backgrounds, but they often share similar feelings. Also, sidenote of appreciation for Davis’s blog and Daisy’s fan fiction!

While it may seem a bit mundane considering how large of a role mental health plays in the book, my favorite aspect overall was the fact that Aza’s last name is Holmes. AND SHE’S SORT’VE SOLVING A MYSTERY, SHE’S SHERLOCK HOLMES!! I haven’t read too many interviews with John Green about the book, but I really want to know if her last name had this intention.

I think The Fault in Our Stars will always be my favorite John Green book, but Turtles All the Way Down is definitely in my top 3 favorites of his. Have you read Turtles All the Way Down? Share in the comments!

Summary: Environmental lawyer Abby Williams left her hometown of Barrens, Indiana, ten years ago and she hasn’t looked back since. She wouldn’t trade anything, like her thriving career and modern apartment in Chicago, to return back to the failing small-town that is Barrens; unless you knew the reason why Kaycee Mitchell disappeared after high school graduation. When Abby’s work brings her back to Barrens to investigate Optimal Plastics, a high profile company that brought the town back on the map, she’s forced to confront her old demons: her strained relationship with her father, ex-crushes, and high school bullies. As Abby uncovers secrets within Optimal, she discovers more and more about Kaycee’s disappearance and “The Game”, a disturbing ritual that Abby wished stayed behind ten years ago.

My Rating: 5/5 Stars

This is one of the best photos I’ve ever taken!

My Thoughts:

I didn’t know too much about Bonfire before going in—okay let’s be honest, all I knew was that it was written by Krysten Ritter, but I had been really intrigued by its hype this convention season. Once I saw that Adam Silvera had given Bonfire a 5 star review himself on Goodreads, I knew that it was time to pick up Bonfire soon. I am more than excited to report that I flew through the addicting and gripping novel that is Bonfire and it has become one of my favorite reads of the year!

Bonfire is dark from the get-go. We’re introduced to Abby and her high school bullies, Kaycee and Misha, right from the start and the mysterious illness that claimed their senior year. The introduction made me think that Bonfire was actually a dystopian, but I was happy to find out in the next chapter that it takes place in “real life” and has mystery and thriller vibes. I found myself glued to this story for its fast-pace and its complex characters. I will say that there is a large cast of characters and at times, I lost track of more minor characters , but I enjoyed how each character really contributed to the story and Optimal case. I found myself really liking how the story interwove both small-town and big business-type politics.

Like Abby, I found myself most interested in the disappearance of Kaycee Mitchell. Throughout the novel, Abby questions if Kaycee was really sick or not and what the real reason behind her disappearance was. It takes the majority of the novel for Abby to crack the code, but it’s not just Kaycee’s disappearance that she’s uncovering; after all, she’s back in Barrens for her environmental law work against Optimal. She’s also realizing that her father is a worse position than he was when she left, and she’s trying to figure how her high school menace is now vice principal. Abby also deals with some old romantic sparks, with golden boy and now Optimal higher-upper Brent and Condor, high school dropout who now lives right across the street with his daughter. Maybe it’s because Bonfire is an adult novel, but there’s also a lot of drinking and alcohol in the novel. I didn’t mind it so much, until Abby’s drinking starts to mess with her memory. However, I think it added to the novel’s mysterious and who-dunit vibes Ritter may have been going for.

Confession time: I haven’t seen Krysten Ritter in most of her work, including the Netflix-hit Jessica Jones and the beloved Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23. I think that the only film I’ve seen Krysten in is Confessions of a Shopaholic. I’m often a tad nervous about reading books written by celebrities/famous people/vloggers—basically people where you know that book-writing isn’t their most-known area of expertise—but as you can probably tell from above, I loved Ritter’s Bonfire and was really impressed by her writing style and story-telling. I look forward to see what she brings out in the book world next!

Have you read Bonfire or do you plan on picking it up? Share in the comments!

Summary:Sasha Stone really has it all. She’s bound to be valedictorian, she’s first chair clarinet, and has a boyfriend to match. But what she doesn’t want? This sudden crush on Isaac Harver that keeps cutting into her mind and worse, practice time. Add this to how she’s just discovered that she absorbed her twin in the womb, and Sasha is left feeling that maybe she doesn’t have it all. But no worries: her twin is there to remind her of that.

My Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

After being really impressed with Mindy McGinnis’s The Female of the Species in early October, I was excited to pick up This Darkness Mine soon after. If you like Jandy Nelson’s The Sky is Everywhere or Gayle Forman’s If I Stay for their musical elements, you’ll really like This Darkness Mine as the first hundred pages or so puts an emphasis on Sasha’s relationship with music and her clarinet. But that’s where the similarities end.

I was really interested in reading This Darkness Mine because its blurb highlights how Sasha absorbed her twin, Shanna, in the womb. I don’t want to go into too spoilery-details but the basic premise of the book is that Shanna lives within Sasha. Unfortunately for Sasha, this means that Shanna’s crush on Sasha’s classmate, Isaac, largely affects Sasha’s feelings and behaviors, to the point that she doesn’t even remember being with Isaac. I liked how Sasha shares this sensation of having Shanna inside of her with her parents, much to their doubt and fear of their daughter’s psychological being though, because we often see protagonists in the YA world hiding their problems from their parents.

My biggest “problem” with This Darkness Mine is that we spend so much time on Sasha fretting over Shanna and Isaac and how it’s affecting her life. Yes, it’s obviously part of the premise of the book, but there’s such a lack of plot movement and felt very high school trope-like that I found myself getting bored. However, the novel’s major changing point *somewhat spoiler* where Sasha is hospitalized was a major changing point in my feelings as well. From Sasha’s hospitalization to the end of the novel, the story really becomes the psychological thriller This Darkness Mine’s blurb promises. While I think the second half of the book could have been a bit more condensed, I was really intrigued by Sasha’s mindset and trying to determine what was real and what was in her head.

Overall, This Darkness Mine was a great book for me to read around Halloween due to its mystery vibes and dark setting. I didn’t enjoy it as much as The Female of the Species, but while both books are on the darker side, they have such different plots and settings. There was also a bit of gore at the end that seemed fitting to the holiday, but left me with my hands over my heart and barely being able to read the pages because of how creeped out I was—horror fans, unlike me, will love it!

Have you read This Darkness Mine? Share in the comments!