Book Reviews: Paper Towns

Paper Towns by John Green

 “The town was paper, but the memories were not.” 
- John Green, Paper Towns.

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life - dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge - he follows.

After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues - and they're for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer Q gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew.


Now let me just start this review by saying this book is very similar to Looking For Alaska and I can see why some people got annoyed, but I didn't really mind, I thought it had it's own originality even if the main characters were basically a carbon cutout of Miles and Alaska. 

Paper Towns is the story of a boy named Quentin who is in his Senior Year in school, Ever since he was a child, he has been in love with the quirky, eccentric Margo. One night Margo enters Quentin's bedroom window and takes him on an adventurous night full of pranks, breaking into SeaWorld and scenting cars with the smell of fish, however the next day, Quentin finds that Margo has disappeared, que a book full of mystery, humor and many pretentious characters. 

I really enjoyed this book, much more than I thought I would. It wasn't my favourite John Green book but it was really fun and quick. I had my problems with it, but overall I thought it was a good novel, not outstanding though.

Characters:

I really enjoyed Quentin's character at the start of the book, but towards the middle he got quite annoying with his obsession with Margo, even missing his Prom and Graduation just for her. It was quite unrealistic since he had only talked to her about 3 times in his life. Also he was in his Senior year in school and he didn't even care about his future education.
I really liked Radar, Lacey and Ben, they were really funny and made the book much more interesting. The minivan scenes were really funny to read about.
Margo was a 50/50 character, I really liked her at the start, but she was really annoying at the end, and I found her to be quite attention-seeking.

Plot:

I loved the start of the book, it was really fun and I loved all the pranks Margo and Q pulled, however when Margo disappeared the book started to get quite slow and boring.
My favourite scene was probably the shopping/minivan scene, it was hilarious.
I felt the ending was a bit anti climatic and I thought it should've been a bit longer so we could see what would happen after (SPOILER) Quentin leaves Margo, I would of loved an epilogue happening after Q started College and finding out what happens to Margo.

Overall I thought this was a good novel and I really enjoyed it, not one of my favourites but it was a nice summer read. I have read every John Green book now except An Abundance of Katherines, which I plan to read quite soon. I'm giving this book 4 stars out of 5.