Okay, John Green, I will be the first to admit that your writing borders on cliché. Okay, your writing is COMPLETELY cliché, sometimes, but I can’t help but love it. You are the king of the manic pixie dream girl and I sometimes get tired of it, but have yet to be able to resist any book that your name graces the cover of.

And while most of your stories are cliché, "Turtles All The Way Down" is something truly refreshing. There are very few times in my life, even with all of the books I’ve read, that I’ve felt truly connected to the author while reading. So, John Green, this is a thank you note, for writing something I could find myself in, for writing something I could find you in.

For those of you who haven’t or won’t read "Turtles All The Way Down," here is the best I can do at synopsizing it. This is a story of a high school junior, Aza, who suffers from an anxiety disorder that seems to take over her life and fills her head with seemingly irrational fears of becoming sick or contracting a bacterial infection. The father of Aza’s childhood friend, Davis, goes missing hours before a police raid on his house, and her best friend, Daisy, convinces her to go looking for him to collect the $100,000 reward. Through their search for Davis’s dad, Aza and Davis become closer and lean on each other for support through the difficult times both of them are going through. The search is put on the back burner in the middle of the book as Aza’s mental health state deteriorates and she finds herself in the hospital. I won’t give away the ending, so you now must go buy and read this book.

Now, I want to thank you, John Green for this masterpiece you have created. Thank you, John Green, for creating a character that I can wholeheartedly relate to. I have suffered with an anxiety disorder for as long as I can remember and reading a story about another person who endures the same feelings is refreshing.

Mental illness is too often romanticized, written as a trope that can be easily righted with a kiss from a cute boy and someone’s dad’s record collection from the 70s. This story paints mental illness in its true light: a spiral. It's something you can’t explain to other people, escape, forget about or just walk away from.

Not only can I find myself in this story, but I can find John Green in this story as well. I can tell, with the way Aza’s internal monologue is written, that you have experienced these feelings, and I’m sorry for that.

As I read through Aza’s struggle with everyday life, relationships, and friends and their relating to her anxiety, I could picture myself, nothing I have been able to do with any other book previously. I have become increasingly angry at books that begin with such a strong case for mental illnesses and then quickly switch to a by kissing a girl and everything becoming right. I could feel her desperation for everything to get better, or just stop--but what’s the difference, really?

Thank you, John Green, for writing yourself into a story, for writing me in a story. Thank you for writing a story millions of people can relate to. Thank you for writing the spiral.