Paper Towns by John Green
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I put this book on my TBR challenge list this year because I’d been staring at it for a while. My first book by John Green was The Fault in Our Stars and you know how I loved it… So I wanted to experience more of Mr. Green’s words and stories and I actually really kind of enjoyed this story. I say kind of because I wasn’t really sure what to expect.
The story starts with a bang… Margo Roth Spiegelmen and Quentin have been neighbors forever. They used to be friends but now are simply acquaintances. She’s part of the popular crowd and he’s … not. But his friends are wonderful and loyal and everything you could ask for in a friend. One evening though, Margo shows up at Q’s window and convinces him that he should help her. She has eleven things on their ‘to do’ list and they start immediately. It’s nothing Quentin could be prepared for. After an evening of uncovering secrets her friends kept from her and a little bit of lawbreaking Q and Margo part ways on the sidewalk.
The next day, Margo is missing… only very few people are worried because this is just something she does.
As the story unfolds we learn more and more about Margo and I have to say, I struggle with why Quentin really wanted to be her friend and invested all his time and effort into her. I get that she was this ideal that he had a crush on all these years, but I just found myself struggling to connect with why he should care. He put all this effort into someone who really didn’t give a shit about him and that made me angry for him.
What did I love. I loved the friendships that were created between Quentin and his crew. Ben, Radar and even Lacey ended up being wonderful characters and I loved the interactions that Green created here. The road trip had to be one of my favorite parts of this whole book! Of course I also loved the dialogue. I think that is absolutely one of John Green’s strengths.
I did struggle a bit with the middle of this story simply because you get all this action in the beginning and then I just felt it dragged a bit towards the middle. It’s not a huge slow down, but enough of one where it took me out of the story for a bit.
I’m probably one of the last people out there to read this book, but if you haven’t definitely put it on your list if you’re looking for something a bit different. I think you’ll absolutely enjoy most of the characters!
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