I guess I'm not a Paper Girl

I can honestly say that it was difficult to put down John Green's PAPER TOWNS.  Yes, it is a very good book and well worth reading.  John Green truly has a gift for story-telling and I, for one, am very glad that he is sharing that gift with the world.  With that being said, though, all I could think about throughout the whole of the story was LOOKING FOR ALASKA.  While there are some obvious differences between the two stories--which I won't name just in case you haven't read one or the other or both, the two are still essentially the same story.  It's almost as if Green asked himself what would LOOKING FOR ALASKA be if THIS hadn't happened--if it had gone THIS way instead of the way it did?  (Or vice versa.  I haven't looked to see which book was written first.)  That's not a problem.  It's actually quite genius because I was wondering the same thing.  If you know anything about John Green's previous books, I feel the need to remind you, then know going into PAPER TOWNS that he stays mostly faithful to his MO.  

One final thought:  I'm sick of labels such "Young Adult" literature for stories like PAPER TOWNS just because the main characters are teenagers.  I am in my mid-forties and I have enjoyed every so-called "young adult" novel I've read--especially those of John Green, Gayle Forman, and the best of them all, Stephen Chobsky's THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER.  Yes, the main characters in their stories are teenagers, but not only do I remember what it was like being a teenager, but I can also relate to the extreme emotions of the teens within these stories.  

Teenagers are NOT the only age group to FEEL with every fiber of their being, you know!