Rated: ⭐️⭐️
Considering that John Green is one of my favorite authors, I had high hopes going into this book. Hoping it would be one of my new favorites like Looking for Alaska. But it got no where near that.
Aza Holmes is just a sixteen year old girl going through high school with her best friend Daisy and dealing with the ups-and-downs of having major anxiety. She never intended to pursue the mystery of fugitive billionaire Russel Pickett but Daisy, being the fearless woman she is, is eager to investigate. The hundred thousand dollar reward is motive for Daisy but Aza is more interested in rekindling with her childhood friend Davis Pickett, who just so happens to be Russel's son. Aza is trying to live her life but figuring out a billionaire mystery, dealing with Daisy's antics and starting a new kind of relationship with Davis is all too much. Meanwhile, she deals with the constant voices in her head telling her that she is going to contract a major disease every time she does anything! It's hard to confront anxiety and if Aza doesn't do it soon she'll be stuck in her own spiraling thoughts unable to live a normal life like she wants.
The synopsis of this book on Goodreads is so inaccurate. This book is not about Aza solving the mystery of Russel Pickett and the hundred thousand dollar reward. It's the constant battle of anxiety in her head. Which don't get me wrong, it's good to have characters suffering from mental illness but not when I thought the story was going to be about something completely different. The synopsis doesn't mention, not once, that Aza suffers major anxiety and that a majority of the non-existent plot would be about that instead of the mystery. I was very disappointed by that. Second, I think Aza's character could've been written better. It's my personal opinion but, I think a different (more realistic) kind of anxiety would've fit this story better. Not to the point where it almost immobilizes her. Then the focus of the ACTUAL plot would be the mystery and not Aza freaking out that eighty four million of Davis' microbes are in her mouth after kissing him and that if she doesn't put hand sanitizer in her mouth she's gonna die.
It's an interesting way to write a character but I think it could've been done more tastefully and more realistic. I don't want anyone to think that I'm trashing on people with major anxiety, because at one point I had major anxiety like that (not to the point of hand sanitizer in my mouth but in a different way) and I think that it is important to write about characters with mental illness. But if John Green wanted to write a story about mental illness he should've written about mental illness and gotten rid of the billionaire mystery business that was completely unnecessary and misleading.
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