Turtle's All The Way Down Analysis

When reading two reviews for John Green’s latest release, Turtle’s All the Way Down, I was met with two reviews from magazines that varied in tone, content, and usefulness/audience. The first article is from USA Today, which I found on Opposing Viewpoints, is more of an general overview of the book and its characters. The second is from the New York Times, which I found via Google, had a much darker take on the novel. In the article from the New York Times, it has a more negative tone as it details the horrors of mental illness, specifically obsessive compulsive disorder. It tells us how the main character, Aza’s “repetitive, intrusive thoughts are her true torment” (Senior 7). Describing her mental illness as her “torment” gives the readers a view into how much this disorder is crippling and destructive. This

The New York Times review was more useful for someone like me, who already has knowledge about John Green and wishes to dig deeper. On the other hand someone looking for a very general overview that lightly brushes on Green would benefit from reading the review published in USA Today. However, Senior wrote her review in a way that cannot easily be ignored nor forgotten, leaving a lasting impression of the book on the reader, making it worth the read. There is bold word choice, describing the book as “astonishing” (Senior 4), “stirring” (Senior 15), and “powerful” (Senior 15); all of these adjectives create a desire to read the book that inspired the use those words. This bold word choice, and the combination of the more descriptive tone and more detailed content, the New York Times review makes me feel more inclined to purchase the book. There are few similarities between the reviews, besides the fact that they are both from American newspapers, however, there are an abundance of differences in retrospect to the tone, content, and