nikmahie reviewed Paper Towns by John Green
Review of 'Paper Towns' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
After reading 'The Fault In Our Stars' and 'Looking For Alaska', I was ready to read 'Paper Towns'. I have to say that I was very disappointed. I honestly do not understand that some people love this book and even recommend it to others after having read TFIOS. The first part was okay, but after that it went downhill very fast. This story is empty and boring. The only reason I didn't skip to the ending immediately, was that I wanted to give John Green some credit and I still had some hope that the ending would make up for the entire book... But sadly, I was wrong, and the only thing I thought after finishing the book was: "Are you kidding me? Is that it?" That pretty much sums it up. I gave it 2 stars, but only because I enjoyed reading the first part.
For those who want …
After reading 'The Fault In Our Stars' and 'Looking For Alaska', I was ready to read 'Paper Towns'. I have to say that I was very disappointed. I honestly do not understand that some people love this book and even recommend it to others after having read TFIOS. The first part was okay, but after that it went downhill very fast. This story is empty and boring. The only reason I didn't skip to the ending immediately, was that I wanted to give John Green some credit and I still had some hope that the ending would make up for the entire book... But sadly, I was wrong, and the only thing I thought after finishing the book was: "Are you kidding me? Is that it?" That pretty much sums it up. I gave it 2 stars, but only because I enjoyed reading the first part.
For those who want to get a more detailed review:
First off I want to say that John Green has the bad habit of choosing characters that are almost the same in every book. Yet again it's about a boy who loves a girl, but for some reason it's not working out like it should. I have to admit that I did not like the characters at all. I thought Q was a very weak person who had no opinion and was for unknown reasons completely obsessed about Margo. He let Margo boss him around and basically direct his entire life from the moment she stepped into his room. Also, I did not like Margo, because I had no idea who she really was. I didn't get enough information out of the book to get a good idea about how she is as a person. First I thought she was the popular girl who used Q for her own needs, then I thought that she was a complete nutcase for being a completely different person when she was in her room and then it shifted to thinking that she really was a very messed up teenager who had no idea what she was doing. And so on and so on... I still have no clue about who Margo really is.
Second: The ending sucks. That's the big problem about this book. The book is okay in the beginning, but after the first part it just goes downhill. The first part is fun to read, because there's a lot of exciting things happening. But after Margo leaves, it just gets boring and there's nothing really that holds your attention. From the moment she left and Q discovers that she left traces for him, it was simple what the ending would be. Or a) she committed suicide, or b) she's alive somewhere and just ran off. Well, I think it's sad that it ended up being option b). She's not even happy when he finds her, which irritated me even more. There's nothing to learn about this ending. In TFIOS or LFA there was always a big thing to learn from the story, but in this case it's just a stupid ending with nothing more.
