Despite reading more YA than anything else, somehow I haven't yet read anything by John Green. The galley for PAPER TOWNS came in from our rep wearing a little post-it that said "his best yet" so I decided to give it a shot.
The good? The book. It's fantastic. The main female character is really unlikeable, but I don't think it's her book - I think it's Quentin's book and as such it's fantastic. His writing is truly wonderful, good voice, believeable characters, good plot. The whole package.
The bad? The cover. UGH. What the hell with all the picture covers? Not only is it a girl's face, but there are two options and both are bad - one bluish and sad, one yellowish and happy. The book isn't really about a girl, first of all. I mean, I understand that Green's readers are primarily female and they need to appeal to that. But do they really need to appeal to that with an enormous picture of some random girl's face? I guess I should be glad that it's not some headless girl, but whatever happened to just a good cover? What happened to art direction? What happened to imagination? Seriously, slapping some random girl's face on a book doesn't really take any major thought.
This cover has nothing to do with the book whatsoever and its choice, I believe, is a big point against the book itself. Something to be overcome while handselling, certainly - if they wanted to ensure that not a single boy would read this book, they definitely succeeded!
