I'm still undecided on Looking for Alaska by John Green - it promised to 'stay with me forever' and have a profound effect, and while I found some of it touching and I enjoyed parts, I sortof got really bored in parts as well. I don't know, maybe it's me not the book.
Ugh...John Green is so overrated. I made it to the end of Looking for Alaska, but was left kind of Meh about it. I made it to the end of Paper Towns, but only because I was fervently hoping, hoping that someone would smack the shit out of Margo either literally, metaphorically, but both would be nice. I know I shouldn't be in favor of beating up teenage girls, but good glob, someone needed to do something to Margo. Maybe it's proof that I'm a crusty old fart, but even though the book says we're supposed to see her behavior as all cute and quirky, I found myself thinking what a nightmare it would be to deal with her, especially as her parents. But apparently running away constantly, leaving insanely elaborate puzzles for your parents to decipher, then getting upset when they don't readily figure it out, and :gasp: are mad at you for putting them through emotional hell, in addition to repeated lying, theft, burglary, and vandalism, are all just a hallmarks of cute and quirky behavior. It was okay for Margo to screw around with the feelings of others and do all the stuff mentioned, because the people she was doing it to, are just such squares who couldn't understand her vibe.
John Green, you claim to be deconstructing the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but you're doing an exceptionally bad job of it, unless deconstruction means "playing the trope completely straight with no hint of irony whatsoever."
The Fault is in Our Stars was the only other Green book I made it through. It was the first Green book I read and I was kind all "Meh" about it. Looking for Alaska was the second, and Paper Towns will be the absolute last until I receive conclusive proof that he has been replaced with a Bizarro version of himself that can actually write compelling female characters who don't exist to be all quirky and teach life lessons to buttoned-up teenage boys. Of the three listed, The Fault is the most tolerable in that since it is told from the perspective of a female character, it is a little less Manic Pixie Dream Girl fantasy, but it is still pretty Manic Pixie Dream Girl and is entirely too twee for its own good.