Written by the famous young adult author John Green, Paper Towns is one of the most funny and thought-provoking books I’ve ever read.
Margo Roth Spiegelman, a seemingly ordinary teenager, appears as a mystery wrapped inside of an enigma to her neighbor and childhood friend Quentin Jacobsen, commonly known as Q. While the two used to be childhood best friends, the social construct of high school separated the two, but they were fine with being apart. Until, as Q refers to it, the longest day of his life.
After Margo takes Q on a nighttime adventure of revenge, she disappears and doesn’t show up for school the next day. Mr. and Mrs. Spiegelman think Margo had pulled another one of her stunts for attention, but Q thinks otherwise. Margo, being the ever mysterious idea she was, left Q clues for him to find her again.
The book is split up into three sections. The first, titled “The Strings,” strictly about Margo and Q’s all-nighter adventure. Part two, “The Grass,” floats the readers to each of the clues Margo had left Q to find her. The last part, “The Vessel,” is about their 23-hour road trip to find Margo. Once readers finish the book they will realize the connection between each of the subtitles, but you’ll have to read it to find out what that connection is.
I expected this book to be more like Green’s other books, Looking For Alaska, The Fault In Our Stars, so a tragic love story. But, oh boy, was I ever wrong. Paper Towns was more of a coming of age story, with Q’s love for Margo resurfacing throughout the book.
One of the many good things about this book is how Green develops his side characters. Radar, Ben, Lacey and even Margo by the end, feel like someone you could actually know and become friends with. They each have their own particular personality traits that set them apart, but are all still an ordinary person, not an untouchable mystery.
While it slowed down a bit in the middle, the hilarity, suspense and wittiness that is pure Q pulls the reader along.
As Q got closer and closer to finding Margo, he discovered that the Margo he thought he knew was different from the Margo others knew her as. Who is the real Margo? That is what Q had to discover for himself.
Margo first mentions the phrase paper towns in the beginning, describing how Orlando is even worse than plastic, more than just fake. Throughout the book, as Q discovers more about Margo and himself, the definition of a paper town, a paper girl or paper boy changes.
Some people might see this as a negative addition in the book, but it really brings the characters to a more tangible stance with the reader. The characters use curse words. If that’s something that would make you not read a book, then do not pick up this book.
I’ve noticed that most books are the same. There’s the beginning, posing the adventure or quest the protagonist must go on, the ending, with whatever the final battle is occurring that the protagonist usually wins, but the middle of the book is where the meat is. That’s where the journey occurs, with characters dying and falling in love along the way. And life is kind of like that too, we’re all born and are going to die eventually, so we should make our life, our own journey, the best one that we can make. Q learns this as well, that the real joy is in planning the journey, not the final destination, no matter how amazing it may seem.
Green took his readers on the same journey that Whitman did with Q in the “Song of Myself.” While Q was trying to uncover what the real Margo was like by reading Whitman’s poem, he instead found out more about himself. Green does the same, while you’re reading about Q trying to find Margo, you indirectly discover more about yourself along the way.
