It's been over five years since "The Fault in Our Stars" first came out and we were invited into both the fictional and onscreen love story of Augustus and Hazel.

It was the first book I ever read twice and the first movie I went to the theater to see twice. With both times came the same gripping emotions and desire to one day write a novel that changes the way Young Adult fiction is seen such as that one did.

Fast forward to today and John Green has returned with his captivating writing to give us yet another page-turning novel and boy, did it not disappoint.

"Turtles All the Way Down," tells the story of Aza Holmes, a sixteen-year-old girl living in Indianapolis who attempts to solve the mystery of a fugitive billionaire, Russell Pickett, while grappling with severe anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The way the novel is written lets the readers be able to go into the mind of Aza and see how her day-to-day life is affected by her mental illness. There are parts throughout the novel where we see her battling with her demons and going back and forth with her thoughts.

Between her constant assurance that she has Clostridium difficile and her need since she was young to press her right thumbnail into the finger pad of her middle finger until it bleeds, put hand sanitizer on it to clean it out so it doesn't get infected and put a Band-Aid on it, these are some of the things Aza deals with due to both her OCD and anxiety.

As I was reading and seeing this unfold more and more as the novel progressed I couldn't help but think how much I could relate to what she was going through.

As someone who deals with anxiety I tend to keep my thoughts to myself and when I get anxious I try to cover it up so I don't put attention towards me or make it seem like there's something wrong with me.

I never liked to talk about my anxiety because I used to be ashamed of having it because I never felt like myself and I always wished I could go back to being and feeling normal again.

I realize how selfish that sounds now, but during that time when I first experienced a panic attack and trying to figure out what was going on with me, I just wanted to turn back time.

"For a moment, you think you're better. You've just had a successful train of thought, with an engine and a caboose and everything. Your thoughts. Authored by you. And then you feel a wave of nausea, a fist clenching from within your rib cage, cold sweat hot forehead..." (231).

But what makes this novel so special is the fact that it shows mental illness in a way that isn't stigmatized or negatively portrayed, but in an honest and open way that is able to be a topic of discussion that can be put on the table and not stored away and left to fester.

Although there have been strides in making mental illness and mental health more open to talking about, there is no doubt that we still have a long way to go.

But it's novels like this that makes me hope one day we'll finally get to that point that we won't see people who struggle with mental illness be berated for what they have and let them be comfortable in their own skin and treat them as people and not "freaks."

John Green also opened up about his own struggles with mental health and how he's very vocal about getting it to be discussed openly. He says how at even forty he still can't talk directly about his own obsessions and what he deals with.

In a way, writing this novel was both hard and empowering to write for him but he was able to write about it directly without being scared of it. Sometimes in order to cope with our demons, we have to face them head-on.

One of the main things Green wanted to get out of the novel was to show how isolating it can be to live with a mental illness and how difficult it can be for other people around you while feeling isolated.

I tend to do this a lot when I'm out both with people I know and people I don't know. Reading this novel and seeing how Aza interacted with people, her friends, and even her mom made me not feel so alone with how I deal with my anxiety too.

I think for me, what stood out the most with this novel was there was no happy ending for Aza's mental illness. Because much like in real life, your mental illness never really goes away.

Although it can be nice to read certain stories where there's this sort of victory with defeating your mental illness and everything being back to normal, that always isn't the case with everyone. I appreciated the fact that Aza didn't defeat her anxiety and OCD. She is still learning to deal and cope with it and because of her, I'm starting to realize I can do the same too.

"I would always be like this, always have this within me. There was no beating it. I would never slay the dragon, because the dragon was also me. My self and the disease were knotted together for life." (280).

For some including myself, mental illness isn't something I'm ever going to get rid of for good. It's not something I can ever defeat But it is something I can learn to live within a healthy and fulfilling way and still have a good life.

And if it wasn't for this novel, I would've never been able to come up with that conclusion. To anyone who struggles with a mental illness, I highly suggest you read this book. It will open your eyes to seeing something you never thought was possible.

Now the only question I have left is this, "When can this novel be turned into a movie?"

I applaud you, John Green, and I'm already anticipating your next novel.