Turtles All the way Down should have been a blog post [spoilers]

First novel I've ever read by John Green. (Hi! I know you and your brother are both redditors!) They are awesome people and YouTubers that I've followed for, shit, 18 years?? It's been awhile.

So TATWD does some things extremely well. Mainly, describes what it's like to have OCD in a very fleshed out and believable way. John allows us to get inside the MCs head and experience crippling OCD in what may honestly be the best way ever expressed in fiction or even in general. It's so visceral, and clear, and based in lived experience rather than clinical language.

And I get it, John wanted to tell a story of someone living with OCD in order to make it real and embodied in a way you can't do otherwise.

The problem is that everything else about the story felt like it was simply a vehicle to convey author's barely hidden personal experience with OCD. Why not make it a personal memoir in that case? The story, btw, is about a girl OCD and her friend, with Star Wars fan fictionitis, who try to unravel the mystery of a missing billionaire in their town and ugh it just wasn't that compelling.

It felt didactic. The conclusion wasn't particularly moving because everything interesting the book wanted to say had nothing to do with the characters and more to do with the author.

John's a terrific writer and I *adored* Anthropocene Reviewed, but he's a great author for 2 distinct reasons: He has great ideas, and he conveys writes in a compelling way. Both of those have nothing to do with actually writing stories though. At least, not this story. I'm willing to give Fault or Alaska a shake. But even then I'll be reading for the CONCEPTS not the CHARACTERS. The PROSE not the PLOT.

John should focus more on nonfiction, I think that direction is where his real strength lies.