75 pages • 2 hours read
John GreenTurtles All the Way Down
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 6-10
Chapter 6 Summary
Aza has nothing to do after school because Daisy has to work, so she drives aimlessly and returns home. Lyle brought back the canoe, repaired. Aza’s mother guesses that Aza and Daisy were paddling on the river so they could see Davis. Aza’s mother asks how Davis is doing, without his father, and Aza thinks he is okay. Aza and her mother talk about Aza’s late father, who died because of a heart attack. Aza’s father would have understood Aza in ways her mother cannot, though he was such a worrier that Aza might have found that exhausting. Aza’s mother still cannot believe that he left them.
Aza goes to meet Daisy at Applebee’s, their favorite hangout. They use coupons to get cheap hamburgers every visit. Daisy shows Aza an obscene picture she received as fan mail in response to her Star Wars fiction. Daisy tells Aza that she researched wills and found that Pickett can will his estate to a foundation to benefit an animal. Daisy tells Aza to research the Pickett family while she gets a copy of the police report.
On her laptop, Aza goes through Davis’s various social media pages. She finds Davis’s blog, which features quotes. One quote, that one cannot choose one’s thoughts, speaks to Aza. Davis’s posts stopped the day his father disappeared. Daisy tells Aza to find more useful information about the Picketts. Aza finds that Pickett’s company had been caught bribing state officials in exchange for the contracts to build a sewer overflow system on the White River. Daisy tricks the journalist who wrote a newspaper story about Pickett’s disappearance into emailing her the police report. Aza enters a “thought spiral” of worry that the journalist will get in trouble and that they will be caught. Daisy changes the subject to the question of whether Chewbacca is a person and Aza calms down. Daisy tells Aza that is time to text Davis.
Chapter 7 Summary
Aza was too nervous to text Davis over the weekend. As she drives to school, her mother questions her about her medications. Secretly, Aza is not taking her medication regularly and is not convinced it helps. Mychal greets Aza at her locker. He awkwardly tries to talk to her and she mistakenly thinks he is asking her out, but he asks if she thinks Daisy will go out with him. Embarrassed, Aza says that he should talk to Daisy. Aza hurries to class and texts Daisy about the incident. Daisy says that Mychal looks like a giant baby and tells Aza to read the police report.
Aza surreptitiously reads the report during her classes. There is not much of interest and Aza realizes that the police do not have the significant information she has from the motion-detector camera, which shows when Pickett left the estate. Daisy wants to go to the police, but Aza insists on speaking to Davis first.
Aza gets a text from Davis, saying that he used to think he should not be friends with anyone who just wants his money, but now he wonders if he can separate who he is from his money. Davis is so lonely he does not care anymore why someone likes him. Aza replies that it is hard to know what you are, but he is not his money. Davis and Aza text back and forth, talking about the night sky and how alone Davis feels. Davis worries about Noah, who still thinks their father loves them. Davis talks about his late mother, who Noah barely remembers. Aza thinks about their fathers and how everyone disappears eventually.
Chapter 8 Summary
Daisy tells Aza that Mychal asked her out and she told him that it would have to be a double date with Aza and Davis. Aza texts Davis and invites him to join some friends at Applebee’s on Friday. He immediately agrees.
On Friday, Aza has an appointment with Dr. Singh. Aza tells Dr. Singh that she does not feel in control of her life. Dr. Singh asks about the frequency of Aza’s intrusive thoughts and fears of C. diff. Aza answers that she is still crazy. Dr. Singh asks for an example of how Aza’s thoughts interfere with her daily life and Aza explains that eating makes her think of the living organisms in her body, of how she has no more of soul than those bacteria. Dr. Singh says that that is “not uncommon” and asks if Aza is taking her medication. Aza fears the medication will change who she really is.
Dr. Singh tells Aza that pain is hard to describe with language, so people use words like “crazy” to minimize their hurt. She tries to get Aza to think of herself as courageous instead, to show how she struggles to combat her daily terror and worry. Aza resists this “therapy stuff.” As Dr. Singh discusses the need for her to take her medication, Aza becomes consumed with fear that her stomachache is a sign of having contracted C. diff. Dr. Singh assures Aza that she does not have C. diff, but Aza cannot be deterred and she sweats profusely. Dr. Singh tries a breathing exercise with Aza, then schedules her next appointment. Aza goes back to Harold and looks up a case report on a woman with C. diff. Her thoughts spiral further.
Chapter 9 Summary
Aza spends hours preparing for the double date. Her mother notices she is wearing makeup and asks if she is dating Davis. Aza is evasive. Her mother cautions her that wealth makes people careless about others. She hugs Aza tightly. At Applebee’s, Aza is the last to arrive. Daisy and Davis launch into a discussion about Star Wars and Mychal comments that Daisy is a popular fan fiction writer. Davis looks up her latest story and is impressed. Aza does not speak, feeling like she is detached from the others. Daisy tries to draw Aza into the conversation, but Aza feels mentally adrift and can’t participate. Davis insists on paying the check, saying it is not an inconvenience. Davis invites Aza and Daisy to his house, where they have access to all new movie releases.
At Davis’s house, Mychal immediately recognizes the architect who designed the house and is awestruck by the famous artwork inside. He and Daisy tour the house. Aza examines a painting which looks like a colorful spiral. She is captivated by the feeling that she becomes part of the painting when she looks at it. They go down to the huge basement, which features the home theater, then decide to go outside. Davis leads Aza to the golf course. They lay in a sand bunker and look at the stars. Davis points out that the light they are seeing took hundreds of years to reach them. Aza realizes that Davis is trying to hold her hand and she wants him to kiss her, but she is afraid.
Davis comments that Aza does not talk much. He encourages her to say what she is thinking. Aza hesitates in trying to explain her thoughts, but something in Davis’s eyes makes her trust him. Aza tells Davis how she hates having to live inside a body, that so much of herself is not under her control. Not being able to control her body or thoughts makes her feel unreal, like her life is written by someone else. Davis’s mother was in the hospital for months after her aneurysm, and Davis would lie in bed with her, holding his Iron Man and her hand. Sometimes she would squeeze his hand. His dad tried to tell him that it was just a reflex, but she was still real to Davis.
Davis believes that Aza is too good to be true. He knows that she has the picture from the motion-capture camera. Aza is not there to get more information, but Davis asks how he can know that for sure. He gets up and goes into the estate cottage. He reaches into cereal boxes and pulls out stacks of cash. He counts out $100,000 and hands it to Aza. Aza refuses it, but this is how Davis will know if Aza truly wants to be with him. Aza leaves the cottage and finds Daisy and Mychal kissing in the mansion. Aza greets Noah, who asks if she has found out anything about his father. Noah asks if he can send Aza the notes he retrieved from his father’s phone, thinking there might be clues. Noah wants his father to come home. He begins to cry and cannot think straight. Aza reassures him that he will be okay. Aza goes out to Harold, with the bag of money.
Chapter 10 Summary
Over the phone, Aza tries to tell Daisy about the money Davis gave her. Daisy interrupts to talk about Mychal. They arrange to meet that evening. Aza looks through the notes from Pickett’s phone. They seem random. She sees that the last note is “The jogger’s mouth.” While she waits for Daisy at Applebee’s, Aza reaches into Harold’s trunk and takes out her father’s cell phone, which she keeps in a bag. She regularly charges the phone and looks through his pictures. Aza chooses a picture of her dad’s face and tells him about the money. Daisy arrives and sees the bag of money. It is the first time Aza has seen Daisy cry. Aza worries that the money might be “dirty” in some way, but Daisy shushes her. Daisy is thrilled that she will go to college. Daisy shakes Aza by the shoulders and tells her to be happy that they are now rich. They go into Applebee’s and pay in cash. Daisy talks about quitting her job and believes that Aza is a true friend for having shared the money.
Chapters 6-10 Analysis
The role of absent parents in the lives of their families is a theme in these chapters. When Aza’s mom asks Aza about how Davis is doing after his father’s disappearance, it makes them think of the father whose absence has left a hole in their lives: “I knew we were both thinking about my dad, but we had never been good at talking about him” (51). Though they may not talk about him, their grief is palpable. Aza’s mother still cannot believe that he left them. Aza thinks this is a strange way to frame his death, because he did not choose to have a heart attack and die. This creates a contrast with Davis’s father, who made a deliberate choice to leave his family.
Aza and Davis first met and became friends because they had both lost a parent. It sets them apart from other children who have not had that experience. Parents are supposed to be the primary constant in their children’s lives, so having a parent die upends the universe for a young child. Davis says, ”And the thing is, when you lose someone, you realize you’ll eventually lose everyone” (81). Davis suffered and continues to suffer because his remaining parent was so emotionally distant and failed to provide the love he needed. In essence, Davis’s father disappeared long before he physically ran from the authorities.
Because he is younger, Davis’s brother Noah does not remember their mother well and he still wants to believe that their father cares for them. Aza immediately empathizes with Noah’s pain, which speaks to her own. When Noah cannot think straight, Aza understands: “I knew how that felt—all my life, I’d been unable to think straight, unable to even finish having a thought because my thoughts came not in lines but in knotted loops curling in upon themselves, in sinking quicksand, in light-swallowing wormholes” (112). Aza tends to be self-absorbed, because she has no choice, but seeing Noah suffer makes her want to reach outside her own inner self to help relieve his pain.
Aza and Davis both question their control over their identities, which is not uncommon among teenagers, but is more pronounced in them because of the effects of their early trauma. Aza has difficulty conveying her feelings about her identity in therapy: “I was thinking about how part of your self can be in a place while at the same time the most important parts are in a different place, a place that can’t be accessed via your senses” (71). Aza also tries to explain why she is resistant to taking her medication: “Who’s deciding what me means—me or the employees of the factory that makes Lexapro? It’s like I have this demon inside of me, and I want it gone, but the idea of removing it via pill is…I don’t know…weird” (88). Dr. Singh comments that Aza often tries to describe her experience through the use of metaphor, because that is the only way to understand true emotional pain.
Davis’s angst over his identity is complicated by his family’s wealth. He texts Aza, “What’s the difference between who you are and what you have? Maybe nothing” (79). Davis does not want to believe that his wealth defines him, but he finds himself questioning how to separate himself from it. Davis wants to believe that Aza likes him for himself, but he has been conditioned to keep a hardened shell around himself: “Being vulnerable is asking to get used” (108). So many old friends showed up out of nowhere when they found out that there is a reward for information about his father, so Davis it is not sure that he can trust that Aza.
Yet Davis and Aza clearly feel a connection and sense of understanding in one another. Aza takes the big step of entrusting Davis with a look into her true self: “I even told him something I’d never actually said to Daisy or Dr. Singh or anybody—that the pressing of my thumbnail against my fingertip had started off as a way of convincing myself that I was real” (106). Aza’s honesty resonates with Davis so much that seeks to remove what he sees as the barrier to letting her into his life. He hands her $100,000 in cash, so that he will no longer have to doubt her. If Aza calls him now, Davis will know it is not because of the reward: “He looked like a kid now—his watery brown eyes, the fear and fatigue in his face, like a kid waking up from a nightmare or something” (110). Davis desperately needs someone to love and understand him.
There is a considerable amount of symbolism in the scenes inside Davis’s house. Down in the mansion’s expansive basement, the bookshelves are lined with Pickett’s first-edition collection, which Davis and Noah are not allowed to touch. This represents Pickett’s emotional unavailability towards his children. Davis asks Aza to touch the one volume that triggers the bookcase to open into the home theater, symbolizing the way she has begun to open his closed heart.
Socioeconomic differences between the characters are highlighted again in these chapters. At Applebee’s, Daisy orders water for everyone. Davis wonders why Aza does not order Dr. Pepper and the waitress, who knows the girls well, replies that sodas are not covered by their coupons. Davis has no conception of the idea that adding the cost of a soda is prohibitive for them: “‘Well, I think we can spring for a round of Pepsis,’ he said” (96).
Many elements of Davis’s life, that he speaks of casually, are almost beyond the comprehension of the others, such as having newly-released movies sent directly to his home theater: “We have a screening room, and we…just pay for them or whatever. I actually don’t know how it works” (98). Mychal is overwhelmed by the art collection in the house, which Davis comments about nonchalantly.
The reader sees the contrast between how Aza and Daisy view the money given by Davis, as another example of their differences in socioeconomic situations. Daisy sees her share, $50,000, and immediately believes that this will change her life: She can go to college, rather than night school. Aza points out that the money will not even cover a year at a state university, but Daisy refuses to let Aza bring her down. Daisy calculates that she would have to work more than two full years at Chuck E. Cheese to earn $50,000 and proclaims that they are rich now. When Aza says that they are not really rich, Daisy chides her: “Maybe that’s not rich to you, Holmesy, but that’s rich to me” (123). What Davis considers a sum hardly worth noticing and Aza views as substantial but hardly life-changing, Daisy sees as an unimaginable windfall that will give her opportunities that she feared she would not have.
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