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readwatchdrinkcoffee 's review for:
Paper Towns
by John Green
Paper Towns is two things: a heartfelt story about growing up, and an exhilarating adventure motivated by love, friendship, and the desire to push yourself further in an attempt to find out who you really are.
The story explores a set of characters who are at a point in their lives where everything is changing; a time when a teenager is at their most emotional. The end of highschool is the end of an era, everything matters a great deal at this point, but with unwanted ends come new beginnings, and in a few months they will all be starting new lives with new friends as they leave for different colleges anyway.
It’s a story about growing up and the different kind of relationships that you have – with your parents, with your friends, and sooner or later with the opposite sex – but this isn’t the kind of book that would be taught about at school, either.
It’s too real – these characters drink, they smoke, they have sex, they get STDs, they steal, and they sneak out of the house in the middle of the night: all of the things that your parents are glad you weren’t doing when you were younger (only because you never got caught!).
But these characters aren’t bad role models or over-stereotyped: it’s just the way high school is. Some people get through high school by being the popular girl who dates most of the football team, while others spend their time in the band room and go off to college without even had kissed a girl.
Paper Towns teaches you not to judge somebody because of the role they fit into it, and that even if you do think you know somebody well, you may be surprised at the different layers that one person can have.
These stereotypes are honest, and because of that you can really see yourself in these characters, and that’s what makes this such a lovely novel to read. Every naivity or worry or moment of anger that these characters feel, you’ve been there yourself once, too, and for that, it’s a spot-on coming-of-age story.
The ending is a little disappointing when so much has led up to this point, but at the same time – that’s life!
The story explores a set of characters who are at a point in their lives where everything is changing; a time when a teenager is at their most emotional. The end of highschool is the end of an era, everything matters a great deal at this point, but with unwanted ends come new beginnings, and in a few months they will all be starting new lives with new friends as they leave for different colleges anyway.
It’s a story about growing up and the different kind of relationships that you have – with your parents, with your friends, and sooner or later with the opposite sex – but this isn’t the kind of book that would be taught about at school, either.
It’s too real – these characters drink, they smoke, they have sex, they get STDs, they steal, and they sneak out of the house in the middle of the night: all of the things that your parents are glad you weren’t doing when you were younger (only because you never got caught!).
But these characters aren’t bad role models or over-stereotyped: it’s just the way high school is. Some people get through high school by being the popular girl who dates most of the football team, while others spend their time in the band room and go off to college without even had kissed a girl.
Paper Towns teaches you not to judge somebody because of the role they fit into it, and that even if you do think you know somebody well, you may be surprised at the different layers that one person can have.
These stereotypes are honest, and because of that you can really see yourself in these characters, and that’s what makes this such a lovely novel to read. Every naivity or worry or moment of anger that these characters feel, you’ve been there yourself once, too, and for that, it’s a spot-on coming-of-age story.
The ending is a little disappointing when so much has led up to this point, but at the same time – that’s life!