ghost-of-curiosity:

Here’s the quote from Paper Towns that if you want to hate John Green, you can hate him forever because of this:

(background, the parents are therapists)

““Well,” my dad said, “he was a bully. And his behaviour was deplorable.” This was typical of my parents: in their minds, no one was not just an asshole. There was always something wrong with people other than just sucking: they had socialization disorders or borderline personality syndrome, or whatever.

HIs parents explicitly have told their son that the people who have bullied him his whole life are doing it because they have BPD or are mentally ill. But BPD is specifically singled out.  John Green made two characters he created, who are THERAPISTS, explain away abusive and bullying behaviour as BPD or mental illness.

Major side characters also use the r-word a number of times.

I will never forgive John Green for that quote on page 198 of Paper Towns.  John Green, regardless of his own anxiety disorder, is not an ally to mentally ill people and he repeatedly throws us under the bus in his books.

You know what? MARGO displays at least 5 borderline symptoms.  But she isn’t demonized for being mentally ill (which I think she is). Because she’s not a “bad character”.  Only “bad characters” in Paper Towns get diagnosed with heavily stigmatized mental illnesses or are called ableist slurs.