{"id":634,"date":"2009-12-02T23:13:03","date_gmt":"2009-12-02T22:13:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jutze.com\/?p=634"},"modified":"2009-12-02T23:14:03","modified_gmt":"2009-12-02T22:14:03","slug":"on-the-ending-of-john-greens-young-adult-novel-paper-towns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jutze.com\/?p=634","title":{"rendered":"On the Ending of John Green&#8217;s young adult novel &#8220;Paper Towns&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some time ago I made <a title=\"I Have Many Books (But I Don't Have Paper Towns Yet)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=p8sB8p1slIg\" target=\"_blank\">a song\/video about me not having the novel &#8220;Paper Towns&#8221;<\/a>. It actually won me a copy of the book signed by its author <a title=\"John Green\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sparksflyup.com\" target=\"_blank\">John Green<\/a>. That made me very happy! I started reading it last week. That was a mistake, because only a few pages into the story I was hooked. But I had to work. And to eat. And to sleep. Still, I finished it before the weekend and wanted to write couple of things about it ever since.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The book is good! John Green writes for young adults, so technically I&#8217;m not a member of the target group. And I must say that his first two books (&#8220;Looking for Alaska&#8221; and &#8220;An Abundance of Katherines&#8221;) were very enjoyable, but not, like, a must-buy for each and everyone. But this time around, well, &#8220;Paper Towns&#8221; is still not a must-buy; but I totally recommend it to anyone looking for, well, a young adult novel that is original in its conception, excellent in its execution, and very enjoyable in its language. Here&#8217;s just a couple of (not necessarily representative) quotes to give you an idea:\n<ul>\n<li>Nothing is as boring as other people&#8217;s dreams. (p. 86)<\/li>\n<li>Peeing is like a good book in that it is very, very hard to stop once you start. (p. 183)<\/li>\n<li>As much as life can suck, it always beats the alternative. (p. 287)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Anyway, let me reiterate: it&#8217;s a good book. Buy it. Read it.<\/li>\n<li>This part contains major spoilers, so read on at our own risk. I enjoyed reading the book and was sad to see it end. The last few pages managed to give the plot a satisfying conclusion. Almost. I was left wondering, how it actually ended. Do they get together? Or is the last scene more of an afterthought that&#8217;s to vanish as soon as the sun comes up again? Ultimately, I can live with this ambiguity. I can live with it, because I figured that I can&#8217;t relate to Q. I mean, he&#8217;s the narrator and I like him more than some other of the other characters. Still, when he finally finds Margo, he comes up with his idea about the vessel and about the future. And I find it not very convincing. Sure, a big lesson at the end wouldn&#8217;t have the suited the story. Neither would have an overly romantic happy ending. I just wanted to remark that I preferred the little chunks of wisdom throughout the book. The ending was quite charming, but it didn&#8217;t add anything to what I got out of the story. But then again, I&#8217;m not the target audience and I still recommend you read &#8220;Paper Towns&#8221;.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Today&#8217;s music recommendation goes out to everybody who enjoys the mainstream kind of melodic punk rock. <a title=\"mein Review dazu bei Vampster.com\" href=\"http:\/\/vampster.com\/artikel\/show\/33459_CD-Review_.html\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;The Days that Follow&#8230;&#8221; by Multiball (Vampster-Review)<\/a> is a strong album that could totally be in the charts. The vocals are rather clean and melodic, the music itself rather powerful than catchy. It&#8217;s not the most original album; yet it sound rather fresh compared to many successful pop punk albums out there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some time ago I made a song\/video about me not having the novel &#8220;Paper Towns&#8221;. It actually won me a copy of the book signed by its author John Green. That made me very happy! I started reading it last week. That was a mistake, because only a few pages into the story I was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[696,145,55,146,148,147,149],"class_list":["post-634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-books","tag-ending","tag-paper-towns","tag-protagonist","tag-punk-rock","tag-relate","tag-young-adult-novels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jutze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jutze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jutze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jutze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jutze.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=634"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.jutze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":636,"href":"https:\/\/www.jutze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634\/revisions\/636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jutze.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jutze.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jutze.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}