Early to catch a flight the other week, I realised I left the Grace Kelly biography I was reading at home. With the anticipated release of yet another John Green masterpiece converted to film, I needed little persuasion to quickly pick up Paper Towns at the book store~ why is it that we always just go for the familiar?
Paper Towns (pt), is light, easy reading, typical to Green's young adult fiction style on general. At first I was a bit hesitant to read a book from the point of view of an adolescent male, however this turned out not to be an obstacle at all. Green presents Q or Quinton as a goofy, somewhat nerdy isolated teenager. This theme of not having a large group of friends echoes that of The Fault In Our Stars. So does the romantic plot of the importance of love, but what is a young adult fiction novel without a bit of romance! The novel starts of quite slow, introducing the reader to the world of Q, establishing the connections between him and his closed circle of friends, his parents, his neighbour Margo (played by Carl Delevigne in the film) but also most importantly himself. Once the plot begins to pick up pace, it seems as though Q is having some sort of existential crisis, as he becomes quite self centred and concerned for himself. A confusing incident near the middle of the novel didn't seem relevant to the progression of the plot, but with deeper analysis I guess it showed how helpless Q really is, and it demonstrated the importance of his friends to his life (if you've read the book, I'm talking about the car crash, if you haven't read it just ignore this). Overall, not as emotional or thought provoking as The Fault In Our Stars, but instead is a light-hearted and typical young adult novel. Since I'm not a fan of young adult fiction, I'll only give this a 6/10 Were you more of a fan than I am? Let us know in the comments! Xoxo E
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