yep this is a good one. i loved it a lot

It’s been a long time since I’ve read a John Green book. I forgot how heavy they can be. Overall I thought it was an interesting story line and she’d a lot of light on mental health problems along with having a mystery component to go along. I listed to the audio version and thought the person who read it did a great job and made it easy to distinguish characters. It’s not a book I would re-read and that’s why it doesn’t get 5 stars from me.

I zipped through this for the second time in about 4 hours last night. I think a quarter of the time was spent with tears. This book is cheesy as.. well as cheesy as John Green. But it's also full of empathy and understanding for every character it comes across.

It follows Aza and her ever tightening thought spirals, the currents in her mind that make her obsess over whether her finger is infected or whether there are harmful microbiomes in her gut. She can't control the thoughts and she worries that they're controlling her. That without control, she doesn't truly exist as her own entity. It gives a powerful and sometimes too intimate portrayal of what happens inside her brain, sweeping us along into those painful spirals.

Meanwhile, her best friend Daisy is this confident and wonderful friend, but who harbours resentment over how seriously Aza takes herself. To Daisy, who has to struggle financially, Aza's problems aren't as real as Daisy's. Daisy can't afford braces or a car or her own room. She's trapped in the poverty spiral. She has to work for the minimum wage at a fast food chain which means she falls behind in school, implied that she wouldn't be able to attend a good university because of this.

Daisy's problems are invisible to Ava and vice versa. But by the end of this book, they manage to overcome their instinctive understanding that their personal sufferings are the most important, and they manage to be there for each other. I find that really beautiful.