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The short of it: John Green undeniably is a great writer. If he were to write a fantasy book I would perhaps stop reading anything else altogether until I had it memorized and even then I may not be satisfied with the writing style of another author. He is eloquent and fun, quirky but it flows, and thanks to his youtube I read with his voice narrating. While I got similar vibes as Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherine (though admittedly I didn't make it through the latter, I need magic and adventure more than I need nice prose to keep me reading) the story was unique, fun/quirky, and absolutely duped me. The long of it: Prereview: The writing itself deserves 5 stars, in my opinion. But it isn’t a fantasy so...4 for personal enjoyment. Happy to adjust that! I really wanted to review John Green as a writer but understandably that isn't a feature Goodreads/Google offers (nor should it, anonymity breeds hate). Instead, I took a book of his that was very impactful on me and said my piece anyway. My ego tells me it's important and still a good review particularly if you're skeptical of John Green books. Peace! Review: People seem to have two complaints about John Green's writing. The first is that he writes one story, and then writes that same story a little changed in every book (minus TFiOS don't even @ me that is a unique book). The second is varying complaints about his characters and plotlines that disrespect/simplify women or "features hopeless straight whites needing to find their tragic lover". To the first complaint, I can agree to some extent but not complain about it for two reasons: 1. The genres of Romance and Mystery exist and absolutely NO ONE spends their time complaining about the authors doing that exact same thing. 2. Many people write this story and no doubt hundreds have throughout history. It's an important narrative and people like to complain simply because one person is rewriting it. Do you know how many original story ideas are out there? Sureokayfine, technically there are thousands but none are totally unique and if this is a general idea John finds his pen and life experience guiding him towards so be it. I'm not here to yuck his yum. We have tags on Tumblr and I'm sure on here as well that are basically "more like this" for a reason. Just because John does it with his own plots doesn't make it bad. At least the adventures are diverse and fun even if the moral story isn't. Which brings me to the second complaint. Let's talk for a minute about the humour in people miss-imagining John's narratives about miss-imagining people. The moment you call one of his female-leads a manic pixie dream girl or anything of the sort I get the idea you didn't really get his books. There was one big point he was trying to make and you, capital m, Missed it. And I did too! I read this book cover to cover twice in a row (literally) because I was so angry about how Quentin depicted and thought about Margo the first time I read it; it ruined the experience for me!!! I had a huge, embarrassing AH-HA! moment at the same time Quentin did about Margo and finally understood John Green's writing. To my knowledge, John Green has never written a female character that is offensive on her own but is offensive through the lens of a teenage boy who romanticizes away her humanity (an inherently offensive act). The books serve as a fun adventure in which we learn lessons about ourselves, friendship, love, and the importance of allowing people to be fully formed human beings with moods and experiences outside of ourselves. And it's a noble lesson, a noble story, to say the least.