Alright, John Green is an excellent YA writer. I’m almost 30, so the prose and questions don’t hit me as hard because I’m not a teenager anymore. To reference Looking for Alaska, I have been in the labrynth for a while and I’ve seen too much or I’ve already learned the lessons the labrynth has sent my way.

I have diagnosed OCD and I have struggled with it since I was a teenager (but didn’t realize it was OCD until I was in my 20’s and got help). Now, I am in recovery from my current OCD theme I was being tortured with for many many years. I say all of this to say, I am in a good place with my OCD and Aza didn’t suffer from the same theme I did, so it was a good read for me. Now, I do NOT suggest reading this if you are actively struggling with contamination ocd, health anxiety, or existential ocd themes. Read when you are in a good headspace and have a grip on your OCD!

JG has OCD and he really did it such a justice writing about it and actually explaining to the reader what OCD actually is, because it’s not some “I nEeD aLl pUrPlE PeNs, hahahaHAHAHA iM sOoooooOOoOoo OCD!” bullshit. He wrote about OCD very beautifully and painfully, something OCD is not, and I appreciated that.

Now here are my critiques:

1. I just couldn’t get a read on Aza’s voice. I really related to her pain and struggles, but I just couldn’t get a read on her personality? And maybe that was the point, maybe the point was that you’re actually in her head, and you’re experiencing her not being able to stay in focus or in the present. Let me know if I missed something. I thought Daisy had more of a clear personality than Aza did and that made me a little sad because Aza is our protagonist. The best way I can describe her personality is a bit monotone, I watch the movie adaptation last night and the actress gave Aza more personality than I was picking up in the book.

2. There was a lot of story lines going on at once. I think about 4? Aza’s OCD, romance, friendship, and mystery. I honestly could have done without the mystery part, it didn’t quite fit for me and it didn’t really add to much to the story? Davis was cute and all, but idk I thought it was going to be much more high stakes with his dad missing and stuff, it just felt random and a bit muddy. I wanted more from the mystery I guess, I do love a good mystery!

Besides those, I don’t have any complaints! It was obviously well written, and like I said for Looking for Alaska, JG’s books are such good reads for teenagers! He doesn’t talk down to the reader or treat them like they are stupid. I think he invites readers to make their own decisions about the characters actions, he invites us to critically think, which is fantastic. I wish I would have read JG when I was a teen, I would have ate these books up.

Cute, sad, quick read.