Turtles All the Way Down By John Green Plot Summary
Aza Holmes is a normal young adult in White River High School, Indianapolis, Indiana, or WRHS. Except the fact that she has a continuous spiral of thoughts going on in her head, including her constantly worrying that she has C. Diff, a fatal bacterial disease. She also never intended to face a mystery that would leave her stuck in a place of whereabouts. That mystery is Russell Pickett. The escapee billionaire wanted for fraud and bribery, and fled before an investigation on his house.
Aza’s “Best and Most Fearless Friend” Daisy Ramirez drags her into the investigation for the reward of hundred-thousand dollars. They crash a canoe on to the Pickett estate in order to get film from an unknown motion capture camera on the property. Daisy and Aza got caught after receiving the film and Daisy reported to the estate security that they are friends with Davis Pickett, Russell Pickett’s son. Davis was surprised to see Aza, since they used to be friends when they were younger. Davis believes that Aza is after the reward for his father. Daisy eventually comes back, after leaving for a short amount of time, with Malik Moore, the Pickett’s zoologist. Malik explains that he cares for Tua, the tuatara, which is pretty much a dinosaur living in the twenty-first century.
Aza, Daisy and Davis walked into the Pickett’s house which there they see that the Pickett’s have an actual Picasso painting, and a Rauschenberg too. Aza wonders into Davis’s room, which is very clean. He has concert posters in frame on a wall, a bookshelf with tons of hardcover books packed into it, and on his table next to some books, the Iron Man toy. Davis drives both Aza and Daisy to Aza’s house that night. In which Aza then drives Daisy home. During which, Daisy tells Aza that when Mr. Pickett dies, Tua the tuatara will inherit the entire estate.
On the next day after school finishes, Aza goes for a ride on the highway in Harold, her car who used to belong to her dad. Aza goes home for a while before Daisy gets off of her work at Chuck E. Cheese and the two meet at Applebee’s, their usual studying place. The pair begin to look into Russell Pickett’s disappearance. While searching, Aza checks Davis’s social media profiles and notices that he hasn’t posted since the day of his father’s stunt. On Daisy’s side of her investigation, she phishes a junior reporter into giving her the details of the missing person report for Russell Pickett. The next day at school, Aza reads the report and becomes aware that she and Daisy now know more than the police do with the motion capture camera picture. Though Aza demands that she asks Davis if it’s okay that she and Daisy take it to the police before they do so. Aza and Davis text that night with Aza hypothetically asking that if she knew something about his father, would it make it better or worse, with him responding that it would indeed make it worse, and Aza coming to her own conclusion that it was best not to share the vital information with the police.
The next morning Daisy comes to Aza that she agreed to go on a date with Mychal, Aza and Daisy’s friend, but Daisy suggested that it should be a double-date with Aza and Davis. Aza then asks Davis if he wishes to come and he agreed. After school Aza has a meeting with Dr. Singh, her therapist. Aza admits that she feels that she’s not “‘driving the bus of my own consciousness’”. Though she lies about taking her prescription regularly. Throughout the session, Aza’s stomach aches and still has the fear of C. Diff.
