My Little Pocketbooks: Review: Paper Towns

Paper Towns
Author: John Green
Genre:YA
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Release Date: October 16, 2008
Audiobook: 8 hours and 3 minutes
Narrator: Dan John Miller

Source: Free from BEA14

Book Description

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life—dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows.

After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues—and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees of the girl he thought he knew.

Review

I have finally picked up this CD from my BEA14 pile. And yes it has taken me this long to get to it. Why was it at BEA14? From what I remember the audiobook folks at Brilliance Audio were showing off the new CD cases audiobook will now come in. I was shocked there was a CD in the actual jewel case when I opened it. Surprise! Free audiobook. There are very few free audiobooks at BEA.
The story of teenage Quentin starts with and ends with Margo Roth Spiegleman. She is his mad crash and has been for years unbeknownst to her. He has loved everything about her since they were kids. But she barely even notices him after they start high school. She is now one of the popular girls and he is not allowed into her click. Until the night she breaks into his bedroom through the window begging him to come on a wild adventure with her. But after he realizes they got away with it and thinks she will now accept him at school and in front of her friends, she comes up missing.
This audiobook kind of reminded me of "Gone Girl" and I was ready for some craziness here and there mixed in with all the wild twist and turns. For some reason the first part of this audiobook got me and I was hooked. I was playing along with them on their wild night of revenge on Margo's so called friends and I even laughed (out load in my car) here or there. But then things changed for me when Margo comes up missing. The tone of the book just started to feel a bit darker like Gone Girl (which I loved) did towards the end. The funny one liners from Q's friends were not as funny anymore (except for the road trip). Another odd thing about the post Margo chapters was the complete lack of parental support all the kids involved didn't have. I would think the parents of a missing teenager would be all over the place and every kid/teenager would then have a helipcopter parent. No one had really concerned parents. No adults were helping them or even a bit worried about them. I'm just saying a world of teenagers doing whatever they want to do only happens in a 1980's John Hughes film.
So why the low star rating? Well...I HATED! the end. Yes and you know me and how I love a good ending. Not that it has to be a perfect Disney happy but DANG! Without spoiling it for you there is a lot of time invested into finding Margo and you spend a lot of time reading about these kids looking for Margo, when BAM! Nothing! What was the purpose of the book and all of that looking for Margo if it was for nothing? I just had to yank three stars for that. I just had to. The author could have ended it a million other ways and made the whole thing worth it. But no. Nothing! Two stars for the audiobook narrator Dan Miller who was great and the original story idea of Paper Towns. I love those two things the most but I can't give it more than that. Sorry!