Review Detail
3.0 1 3
(Updated: October 30, 2025)
Rating
3.0
Twelve-year-old Will is sad. His refuge is his bedroom with his turtles. Will’s passion for turtles is not the main reason he is teased at school and called Turtle Boy. Will has a mild facial disfigurement. He barely has a chin, making him look different which is just what the bullies thrive on...others differences.
Will’s family is Jewish, therefore his mom and Rabbi Harris pressure him to prepare for his bar mitzvah. He is completely reluctant because he veers away from any activity that draws attention to himself. In order to complete the contract of the bar mitzvah, Will must participate in a community-service project. He is assigned to reach out to a dying teen named RJ. RJ lives in a hospital room and Will doesn’t like hospitals. They give him flashbacks to when his Dad died. Will was 4 when his father went in for a simple hernia procedure and there was a complication. His father died.
At first, the boys don’t get along, but then RJ shares his bucket list with Will. Here are some of the things he wants to do: get a pet, ride a roller coaster, go to a concert attend school dance and dance with a girl, and swim in the ocean. This concept is foreign to Will who only wants to stay in his room with the simple company of his turtles. RJ’s disease takes a negative turn and Will realizes he needs to tackle the bucket list on his new friend’s behalf before it’s too late. It seems like an impossible mission, and is WAY outside Will’s comfort zone. He completes each task with RJ’s guidance and Will begins to see that life is too short to live in a shell.
There is a lot of wisdom in this book with some humor tossed in. I really enjoyed reading about the Jewish practices highlighted in the story. My review only touches of a tiny part of the events in the life of Will, making this a must read so you too can experience this marvelous debut novel.
The story is less about a boy being bullied and more about how he steps out of his comfort zone to help someone else and ending up helping his own self.
I predict Turtle Boy to be a big hit with middle and young adult readers. (Fiction. 10-14)
Thank you Random House Children and Delacorte Books for Young Readsrs for granting me permission to read this ARC. It’s a winner!
Will’s family is Jewish, therefore his mom and Rabbi Harris pressure him to prepare for his bar mitzvah. He is completely reluctant because he veers away from any activity that draws attention to himself. In order to complete the contract of the bar mitzvah, Will must participate in a community-service project. He is assigned to reach out to a dying teen named RJ. RJ lives in a hospital room and Will doesn’t like hospitals. They give him flashbacks to when his Dad died. Will was 4 when his father went in for a simple hernia procedure and there was a complication. His father died.
At first, the boys don’t get along, but then RJ shares his bucket list with Will. Here are some of the things he wants to do: get a pet, ride a roller coaster, go to a concert attend school dance and dance with a girl, and swim in the ocean. This concept is foreign to Will who only wants to stay in his room with the simple company of his turtles. RJ’s disease takes a negative turn and Will realizes he needs to tackle the bucket list on his new friend’s behalf before it’s too late. It seems like an impossible mission, and is WAY outside Will’s comfort zone. He completes each task with RJ’s guidance and Will begins to see that life is too short to live in a shell.
There is a lot of wisdom in this book with some humor tossed in. I really enjoyed reading about the Jewish practices highlighted in the story. My review only touches of a tiny part of the events in the life of Will, making this a must read so you too can experience this marvelous debut novel.
The story is less about a boy being bullied and more about how he steps out of his comfort zone to help someone else and ending up helping his own self.
I predict Turtle Boy to be a big hit with middle and young adult readers. (Fiction. 10-14)
Thank you Random House Children and Delacorte Books for Young Readsrs for granting me permission to read this ARC. It’s a winner!
JS
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