Book Review: Paper Towns

TITLE: Paper Towns
AUTHOR: John Green
PUBLISHED: 2008
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Realistic Fiction
PREMISE: Quentin has always been in love with the girl next door. When she vanishes, it's up to him to find her...
MY REVIEW: Well, good news, I liked this more then An Abundance of Katherines, but don't think it's quite up to par of Fault in Our Stars. Now that I've read all his books, I repeat what I said in my Looking for Alaska review: I like his stuff. I definitely get why he's popular with teens. I totally rec his books. But I don't see why he gets all this praise outside of YA circles when there are tons of writers in the YA category who are doing the exact same thing he's doing but the rest of YA gets pretty much ignored or shelved as "just that silly YA stuff". His stuff is good but I sort of raise my eyebrow at the "genius" stuff I've seen thrown around. But as I've also said many times: I always raise my eyebrow at hyperbole. Even when it comes to stuff I love. I mean I love Harry Potter but I always sort of cringe when people call it "best series ever" or "best books of our generation" because there's absolutely NO way to prove that and you are setting up people's expectations, so naturally they are going to nitpick at every little thing they find wrong instead of just sitting back and enjoying the story. Because I've found that people have a natural tendency to do this with books they've been told are "the best thing ever". I tend to do it, even though I honestly try not too.
Paper Towns actually reminds me a lot of Looking for Alaska, but I think it does the whole deconstruction of the manicpixiedreamgirl trope much better. Like all of Green's books, the characters are funny, it's well written, great dialogue, good character studies, etc. But ultimately? It's a little similar to Looking for Alaska. I'm not saying it's an exact copy. There's a different plot and whatnot. But the end idea: deconstruction of the manicpixiedreamgirl was kind of the same.
So I have read the John Green. Ultimately I think he's a good author. I just feel people use way too much hyperbole with his books. If pressed, I'd say Fault in Our Stars is his best book. I look forward to the movie and any future books he writes.
WHO SHOULD READ: John Green fans, Maureen Johnson fans, Gayle Forman fans, Realistic Fiction fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five manicpixiedreamgirls