I’m apologising in advanced here: I have recently decided
to participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), despite the fact
that it is already halfway through the month. This means I have to write about
3,000 words a day if I want to complete it on time. This also means that my
very minimal free time that I had before will now be gone until the end of the
month. This includes my blog. There is a huge chance that I will not be able to
get reviews up for the next couple of weeks so, to my very few and very amazing
readers, I am sorry. But I will complete
NaNoWriMo this year! (heh, as if that will actually happen…)
Anyhoo, this week I read yet another John Green book. I
have to say, I’m getting addicted. This one was Paper Towns, a book that personally is currently one of my
favourites. In a very short summary, this book is about a girl named Margo who
disappears after the narrator Quentin spends a night running around the town
with her doing crazy stuff. Quentin becomes obsessed with trying to find her
and follows a bunch of clues, trying to piece together the story. It was very
fast paced, not at all boring, and the ending was probably one of his more
satisfying ones.
First off, I have to say that the age group for this book
is slightly more mature, I can say that about most John Green books, but this
one in particular sounds most like an average teenager. And by that, I mean
that there is cussing and explicit mentions (or joking from the character’s
perspectives) of sex. So if you’re a teenager, I’d say great! Go on and read!
But if you’re one of the more sensitive types, you might want to avoid the
book.
That being said, I feel like this is one of Green’s most
realistic teenage-perspective books. They character’s aren’t over or under
done, and to be honest, I found the characters saying things my friends or I
would probably say. There were also a few references to things that made me
flail around happily at the fact that I understood the reference (such as to
Harry Potter, which was, in fact, mentioned). I could relate to bits of this
book on a level that I normally can’t with most books, so I have to say I was
quite impressed.
The point of this book was for there to be character development
– specifically for the character Margo. So much of the plot was based off of
that, and John Green did a very good job. It was a risky thing to do in a book,
basing a plot fully on how much you learn about a character, but he implicated
perfectly.
Overall, I’d give Paper Towns a five out of five. It
easily made my top five books, probably above his Fault in Our Stars. The book was very well written, well thought
out (unlike this review), and well detailed. I honestly don’t think that there
was anything I didn’t like about it. I would recommend to anyone who wants to
read a very teenager-ish, mystery-ish bo
