Paper Towns in Irish Readers

Jun 02, 2011 Amber rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, favorites, young-adult, better-than-i-thought, to-teach-eventually

I have to try and make this review sound impressive :) so I'm not killed by my friends who adore this author even more than I do, which is a lot. So here goes.

Got this book off my aforementioned friend in June not really expecting to like it, to be completely honest. While I don't mind young adult books in general I had hesitations about whether or not I'd enjoy this kind. But I did. :) Books don't win me over often, I'm stubborn in my opinions and my mind goes about 90 miles an hour whenever I ...more

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Mar 23, 2014 Mary rated it it was ok · review of another edition

So, I suppose when you read three books by the same author in a space of less than 12 months, it's likely that you're going to get tired of them. That said, I'm not sure that I can attribute my 'meh' response to John Green's novel "Paper Towns" to having read his books in fairly quick succession. Truly, if you've read "Waiting for Alaska" you don't need to read "Paper Towns". It's the same story, different ending. That's about it. High school adventures, enough literary references to give cover So, I suppose when you read three books by the same author in a space of less than 12 months, it's likely that you're going to get tired of them. That said, I'm not sure that I can attribute my 'meh' response to John Green's novel "Paper Towns" to having read his books in fairly quick succession. Truly, if you've read "Waiting for Alaska" you don't need to read "Paper Towns". It's the same story, different ending. That's about it. High school adventures, enough literary references to give cover to English teachers assigning the book, wistful boys and troubled but sexy female love interests. Not too much drinking, pot smoking, or really bad behavior (though definitely some suicidal ideation). However, so much reckless vandalism goes uncaught (in both books) that I can't help but cringe at the lack of realism. Maybe I have just gotten old. Or maybe I was a better-behaved kid in high school than Mr. Green apparently was.

The book's plot, so redundant to that of Waiting for Alaska (and to a lesser extent "The Fault in Our Stars"), is also formulaic. I finished the book last night, having spent the day at the NH Writer's annual Writer's Conference at Southern NH University (totally worth whatever I paid for admission, btw), so the plot structure of journey cum transformative experience, and the wanting-something-and-finding-it-but-it's-not-quite-what-you-expected structure were incredibly, painfully obvious and predictable. But in spite of the fact that my eye rolling muscles got a bit of a work-out, I did find myself continuing to turn pages, to find out what would happen next. So that's worth something.

Green also has some pretty nice exposition (which unfortunately reads like exposition rather than unobtrusive omniscient narrator) about life, and growing up, and the beauty of music and poetry and other literary forms. This might be more tolerable a read, actually, if assigned in tandem with some of the referenced works by Whitman, Dylan (Bob), EE Cummings, Sylvia Plath, etc. But given that I'm not in high school, I found it tedious. I think I'll be taking a (long) break from YA fiction, which I cannot quite bring myself to call literature. ...more

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Nov 08, 2011 Gina rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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Jul 09, 2013 Helen Murphy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: young-adult, favourites

Can't think of any other way to describe it other than purely amazing!

I was almost planning to give the book 4 stars because I thought the middle of the book started to become quite slow but the ending! Oh my gawd was it brilliant! John Green is truely one of the best current young adult writers out there!

Love <3 ...more

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Sep 03, 2010 Mairead rated it it was amazing

Absolutely amazing. I would recommend this to anyone. May be one of the best books I have ever read, or at least the most enjoyable. 5/5

A/N: Just re-read it. almost a year later, and still freaking awesome.

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