Paper Towns

I guess I like this book, it's just not my genre.  I am not into the teen angst and coming of age and all that, kind of book.  It took me a few days to get through it, though I was interested in how it was going to turn out, which I guess says something for the characters.  I like Quentin, he seems like a real kid, trying to do the right thing, he cares about school and he seems to like his parents, even though he can see through their psychological talk.  He seemed like a real person to me, and so did his friends, Ben and Radar.  The way they talked to each other is exactly how I have heard some of my students talk to each other, and how boys talked to each other when I was in high school.  Margo, on the other hand, had some believable characteristics, but she was way over the top most of the time.  That made her interesting, of course, to someone like Quentin, who was so by the book.  He saw what he wanted to see, her bigger than life personality, etc, but didn't see the real girl inside, who was really like she was because she didn't fit in anymore than anyone else did.  She was truly a "paper girl", one way to the world, on the outside, and a totally different person on the inside.  I don't know how much I believe the change in Lacey, to where she suddenly decided that dating Ben was "OK" in the terms of high school life, that was a nice twist, but not that believable, to me, at least.  Radar's parents and the black Santas were hilarious, and his parents seemed decent, too. They were a nice subplot.  I liked the characterization overall, the characters seemed believable for who they were. 
The plot took moved quickly, especially when Margo and Quentin were taking their revenge out on their overnight adventure, and it moved after that for awhile, however it slowed down, for me, with all the subdivision talk, the going out to the different places, all the clues. The descriptions of the building was interesting, I did like that, I think teens would like the idea of exploring that old building, the unknown element, the thrill of maybe being caught.  The saving grace during those parts was the humor between Ben and Radar, and what was going on at school during the day.  I do think it was a little unbelievable that the kids would ditch graduation, and that their parents would let them!  My mom would have flipped!  And then she would kill me.  But that element makes it more interesting to teens, too, probably, because most of them would NEVER be allowed to do something like that, if any of them.  That's a fantasy element, in my opinion, even though there is no magic involved.  I managed to keep up with it, but did get a little lost in the middle.  I liked it, overall, but not sure if a teen would stick with it.  They might, if like me, they wanted to find out what happened to the characters.  This is not the type of book I would have read as a teen.