Paper Towns by John Green | Rating: ★★★★☆

“Here’s what’s not beautiful about it: from here, you can’t see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place really is. You can see how fake it all is. It’s not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It’s a paper town. I mean, look at it, Q: look at all those culs-de-sac, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I’ve lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters.”

Ugh, I know, right? A John Green book. So, like, totally, like cliche. But here’s the thing: I love John Green and his work. Say what you will, but I’m not going to deny that I love the way his words flow and his stories. His novels may often have a repetitive theme to it in terms of how his characters act but they still, for me, provide my mind with the opportunity to think. Really and truly think, you know? And that’s important when reading a novel.

And I’d like to make it clear that in spite of flaws and the certain level of pretentious that his characters sometimes reach, I think that his books are something special.

Looking For Alaska by John Green | Rating: ★★★★☆

“When adults say, “Teenagers think they are invincible” with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don’t know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.”

Looking For Alaska was John Green’s debut novel as a published author. This was, years back, my first introduction to John’s writing and it is still the perfect place to start when you want to read anything by him. It’s made of all the things his writing is known for — coming of age thoughts and occurrences, quotes and references that will stick with you, dark comedy and characters that will come alive right before your eyes.

One of the best things about John’s writing is that it feels real — his world becomes something that can play right before your eyes. And it really helps to connect to its target audience. It will surely get teenagers reading and thinking, hey, this guy just gets it.

And gets it, he does.