Paper Towns by John Green
Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life—dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge— he follows. After their all-nighter ends, and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues— and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew.
This is only my second John Green novel. I read The Fault in Our Stars a couple months ago. After greatly enjoying it, I was more than ready to take on a second Green novel.
This one did not disappoint. I really enjoyed the relationship between Q and Margo. I understood Q, because I was a little bit of a Q in high school. Margo Roth Spiegelman is a great character: she’s adventurous and crazy. She’s even inspired me to have my own Margo-esque adventure. By the time you read this, it will be done and I will hopefully have not been arrested, fined, or otherwise penalized. 🙂
Most of all, I was again blown away by the sheer genius that is John Green. It would be a major spoiler if I told you exactly what a Paper Town is (of course, you could Google it). But it’s so perfectly obscure and clever and interesting that I am astounded. John Green is the perfect example of what writers try and cultivate: observant sponges. In the two novels I’ve read, both feature things that are so obscure they are only happened upon by chance. But of course, literally anything and everything can serve as inspiration. Keep your eyes open to the world around you. Anything can stumble in, if you provide the path.
The ending took me a bit by surprise. I didn’t really see it coming, but in retrospect, if Green had done anything else I would have been disappointed. It’s kind of hard to review this novel since so much of it would be spoilers. But suffice it to say, I loved it. Go read it. Just do it.
