Paper Novel about a Paper Girl in a Paper Town

By Shannon J.

            Paper Towns is a mystery novel written by John Green. John Green has also written books such as The fault in Our Stars, a love story, Looking For Alaska, a young adult fiction, and a few others. Although Paper Towns has a hint of romance tied in, it is mostly a mysterious and suspenseful novel. The protagonist and Narrator, Quentin Jacobsen, spends most of the novel searching for his neighbor Margo Roth Spiegelman, a girl whom he has been in love with since childhood.

            Paper Towns takes place in Orlando, Florida, in a subdivision called Jefferson Park. When Margo and Quentin were nine years old, they found a dead man that had killed himself in a park one afternoon, and Margo mentioned how all the strings inside him had broke. However, Quentin notes that you can look at dying in a thousand different ways, and each metaphor implies something different. As Margo and Quentin grow older, they drift apart and he drools over her from a distance.  One night towards the end of senior year, Margo appears in Quentin's room and says, "I need your car" (Green 25). Margo ends up dragging Quentin on a late night revenge mission, one in which has eleven parts to it. At first Quentin is really reluctant to doing anything, and his shy and goody-two-shoes personality are holding him back. By the end of the night however, he has warmed up to Margo and actually enjoys being a badass for once.

            The next day Margo does not show up to school. Quentin is upset because he really wanted to see her, and becomes even more upset and worried when she is not anywhere to be found. Quentin spends the rest of his high school career in search for her, with help from his friends Ben, Radar, and Lacey, who is also one of Margo's close friends. He even misses his own graduation. Similar to the many other times that Margo has up and left, she left clues as to where she was. Except this time she left them for Quentin. Throughout his search, Quentin and his friends feel that they got to know the real Margo better than ever before. As Quentin reveals more clues to her whereabouts, he feels that he can start to see things through her eyes and starts to be able to realize why she did the certain things that she did. He realizes that Margo is actually nothing like the girl that he thought he knew. Will Quentin be able to find her?

            Despite the alluring and mysterious plot, the middle of the novel was extremely dragged out. Chapters three through twenty could have been summarized and simplified to three or four chapters. The beginning of the novel was extremely thrilling and kept me wanting to read more. Likewise, part three, the last part, of Paper Towns was so thrilling that the book was impossible to put down. It seemed like the novel took forever to reach the climax, although the climax was perfect for all the events leading up to it. After the main climax however, there was only a few short pages of falling action, which could have been made longer instead of all the redundant pages in the middle.

            The dialog was perfect because it was fast and realistic, and it did not seem like the characters were placed to simply explain the novel. The characters were perfectly portrayed as high school students, and none of them seemed fake. A high school student could easily see pieces of themselves portrayed in the characters, making it a perfect read for a high school student. It is easy to visualize the characters because Green adds details and human mistakes that we often make ourselves. Despite the many teenage remarks and actions, a few of the characters seemed a little too wise to be in high school. Many of the things that Margo says or does is not something a high school student would think of. It is easy to tell that the writer is much older and wiser than the described characters, because some of his wisdom is reflected in much younger characters.

            The biggest flaw of Paper Towns is the literary and musical references. The book is geared towards older teens and young adults, but many of the references are out of reach of a high school or college student. The age group that this novel is tailored to will not understand references to Walt Whitman and T.S. Elliot. The list of references is over 45 items long, and most of them would be understood by the generation of adults 35-50 years old. However, some of the literary references are necessary to add to the life-changed revelations that the characters are settling on. These insights to the way people understand things really add to the plot of the novel.

            This is a great book for anyone in the late-teen/early-adult age group. Anyone younger or older than that may not understand some of the high school references, but it would still be a thrilling and suspenseful novel. I would highly recommend this book because of its relatable, funny, and insightful chapters. The book was able to give the reader some life changing revelations to ponder when they put the book down. I think reading this novel will make the reader want to seek out more John Green novels. This book can be found at most bookstores or libraries, and can also be purchased as an online book.