I laughed, I pondered, I cried, and I got nostalgic for my high school friends and that feeling of invincible clarity that comes with being young. And while Paper Towns‘s message, about whether we really know the people we think we know, and how we build up constructs of other people in our heads that aren’t really them, was not really a revelation to me at this point in my life, I absolutely enjoyed every second of the ride to get there. Similar though the characters may be, each book has a different story, different quirks, and ultimately, a different point.
So, yes, Paper Towns is manifestly similar to Green’s earlier books, Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines – smart, nerdy, smart-alecky boy, accompanied by his smart, nerdy, smart-alecky friends, meets a girl who is rebellious and challenging and shakes him out of his comfortable little world. Where these books when I was a few weeks from graduating? Where were the books that just got it then? And maybe it’s because I am All Growed Up now that I can see how real and how right Green’s books are, and maybe I’m only imagining “real teenager-dom”, as viewed through a nostalgic filter, but if I am, so what? Green’s books portray teenager-dom exactly the way that I remember it being, only with the humor and the heartbreak and the philosophical revelations that you think are yours alone amplified ever so slightly. But, maybe more to the point, it is supremely not fair that these books are only coming out now, when I haven’t seen the inside of teenager-dom for a decade. Review: My first thought on closing this book was: “It’s not fair.” It’s not fair that John Green continues to put out book after wonderful book, not fair that his books can make me laugh and cry at the same time, not fair that he somehow seems to get real, actual teenagers and portray them so vividly and accurately when other authors seem to have forgotten what real teenager-dom is like. Regardless, I also now get the point of having multiple covers. Before reading it, I liked the yellow "happy Margo" cover better after finishing it, I think I prefer the blue "sad Margo" cover. This book is being sold with two different covers.
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