Juvenile Fiction
Puffin
2009
305
One month before graduating from his Central Florida high school, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen basks in the predictable boringness of his life until the beautiful and exciting Margo Roth Spiegelman, Q's neighbor and classmate, takes him on a midnight adventure and then mysteriously disappears. An ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Reprint.
Review:
I love John Green. No other author can turn a phrase quite like him, and I greatly respect his refusal to create novels that assume teenagers are not capable of reading about real issues they face in a frank manner, even if that includes sex and questionable language. I expect excellent work from him, and he did not disappoint me with “Paper Towns”.
Part of the brilliance of this novel is that a teenager can read it and get an entirely different story from it than an adult who reads it. Neither are inferior to the other, it’s simply that some of it is viewed differently when time removes you further from the days of high school. I literally cried from the overwhelming sense of nostalgia it created.
Quentin Jacobsen is the “every man” of high school. He is not popular, nor is he quite on the bottom rung of the social ladder. In short, he is smart, but average. Then there is Margo Roth Spiegelmen, the girl who was larger than life in Quentin’s mind. The girl on the pedestal. Haven’t we all had that person in our lives at one point or another? Of course, eventually we learn that they are just as human and average as the rest of us, and that is the point of the story.
The lessons to be learned in “Paper Towns” are good for teens and adults. People are not always who they present to the world. Some are better than they let on and some are worse. The best memories aren’t what you think they will be. Everything has a beginning and an end. All of this is woven into a thoroughly entertaining story that is filled with humor and tenderness. I highly recommend it for those who like Green’s style of writing.
Content Warning:
Language, Brief Sexual Content
