Book to movie: Paper towns

I feel that I should head this post with a bit of a disclaimer; I read Paper towns quite a while ago and as such, may have forgotten the smaller details of the novel. This having been said, I do understand that it would have made more sense to have written this comparison after re-visiting the novel  however, I am in the mood to blog, I definitely wanted to blog about this and, as I am currently at my Granddad's and he is sat doing the crossword, this is definitely the perfect time for some spontaneous blogging :D

Okay, as I said this is very spontaneous and I'm hoping its going to be fairly chat-like; especially as I would love to hear your opinions on this. I loved the movie! It was adorable, and sweet, humurous and moving -- much like the book -- and even though i dont think that film Margot looked like book Margot, I thought Cara Delevigne did a fantastic job. What I really wanted to talk about was how different the Margots seemed to be. I really disliked book Margot, she was utterly self-centred, almost appeared to be deliberatly unhappy as a way of appearing more mysterious, she 100% used Quentin and whilst I understand that he did gain from the adventures they had, it was just because he was there and he was what she needed -- a driver, an acomplise and someone who definitely wouldn't say no (at least not with any conviction). Whilst film Margot definitely shared these traits (and thank god, I hate it when feels change the characters so much you can't recognise them) but she actually explained herself. She sat down with Quentin in Algoe and explained everything. And whilst this definitely didn't excuse her behaviour, and I still sat there thinking that what she had done to Quentin (and his friends) and also to Lacey, who didn't even seem to get a look in(!) was horribly selfish and so very arrogant, I still found myself liking her so much more in the film than I did in the books.

The other thing I found really interesting was my sisters reaction and the following discussion we had which, in some part, gave me the idea for this post. My sister came home from seeing the film a couple of days ago (she's now seen it twice and plans to go again) and when I asked her about the film and whether the characters were true to the book. She said they were. What she did say though was that she really like Margot as a character. having only read the book at this point, I disagreed strongly and we began to chat about it. Francesca said that she didn't find Margot selfish and the clues  were just to let Quentin now that she was O.K. Whilst the later point is what she was trying was achieve, I cannot believe that it was just misunderstood. Why would someone who just wanted to let another person know that they were O.K why not just stick a message on the blind or slip someone a note! The clues most definitely pointed towards wanting to be found -- I mean, there was an address and a map! Quentin, Lacey, Ben, Angela and Radar all went on a road trip, that was admittedly also so that they had one last adventure together, but to find Margot Roth Speigelman, and she pretty much just spat it back in their faces. They went looking for her becuase they cared. She didn't care and I think, that maybe with the exception of Q and her sister, she never did care about anyone but herself. She loved the idea of being thought of; despite her scathing attitude towards the 'myth of Margot Roth Speigelman' she actually loved it.

The book portrayed all this. The film tried to excuse her behaviour.

Opinions, would be gladly recieved. Let me know in the comments or contact me on Twitter :)