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

type of detail was left out in the USA Today article where it describes Aza’s mental illness as an “irrational, obsessive fear” (Truitt 4), which gives the readers the impression that the book will be less difficult to read than it really is. Darkness comes with mental illness, it’s inevitable, Jennifer Senior’s article truly encapsulated this concept.
In addition to the reviews having contrasting tones, they also had contrasting content. The NY Times article is bursting at the seams with detail and consequently, it is a bit longer. However, this detail can be extremely helpful to readers, as it gives a better sense of the book as a whole. Another detail that was included in the NY Times review is personal information about the author, “Green has integrity. He also has O.C.D.”(Senior 18). As a result of adding this extra information, Green establishes credibility for writing about the difficulties of living with a mental illness, as well as giving the readers insight on a potential motivation for writing about such a troublesome topic. The USA Today article lacks this level of meticulous detail, leaving it less personal and more basic. While both reviews are of the same book, they leave the readers with very different feelings towards the book, as well as the author. The NY Times review evokes emotions such as sympathy for Green’s mental health struggles, understanding for the main character, and empathy for any readers who are the 3.3 million people who battle O.C.D. In the USA Today article, it was made clear that mental illness is no joke and that it can be “crushing” (Truitt 4), but it doesn’t sit with the readers, since it more brushes past it and moves on to the plot and characters of the book. Between the background information and extreme attention to detail in the Times review, it looks like it’s two for two on tone and content.
While both reviews give the reader a sense of the plot of Green’s latest release, they speak to different audiences.

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

usefulness.