Coming-of-Age; Historical Fiction
You might think a book with a treasure map in it is a shoe-in for the adventure genre, but with Turtle in Paradise, you'd be wrong. Why is that? Because while it's true that there's some adventure, it only really shows up at the end. Instead, this book is about Turtle finding her place in the world, learning about her family history, and figuring out who she wants to become. It's textbook coming of age material, even if she doesn't wind up an adult by the end, as is often the case with this genre.
The other place in your local library that you might find Turtle in Paradise is the historical fiction section. Reading this book is like hopping into a way back machine, and the Great Depression pulses through the story. We're not saying it's brimming with facts, but more that the feel to the book is very much informed by the time it's set in. People are poor, people are worn down, and people are struggling through their days—so it's impossible to finish this read and not have some appreciation for just how hard this era in the United States was.