"What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person"
Paper Towns
written by John Green
I like the concept of this book. A “paper town” is a fictional town created by a mapmaker to distinguish his map from others (for copyright purposes). The town exists solely on the map and is not a real place, hence “paper town”. This book uses this example of something existing only as an idea to explore deeper themes than what is characteristic of young adult fiction, such as reality versus imagination. This is applied to locations and people, particularly, Margo Roth Spiegelman. This whole book is centered around her and “who she really is” and later “where she really is”. However, this book is not from the perspective of Margo, who remains absent throughout the majority of the book, but by her neighbor Quentin.
Quentin resembles some of John Green’s other male protagonists in that his thoughts are fixated on an unattainable girl who seems remarkable, yet a little broken. Shout out to Abundance of Katherines and Looking for Alaska! I would have liked to see more of Quinton’s fixation, Margo Roth Spiegelman. This is a desire that is shared between the reader and Quentin because he spends his time trying to get her back after she mysteriously disappears a month before graduation. While this book is “Margo-centric”, as she drives the plot, the reader spends most of the book with Quentin and his friends.
Quentin was not close with Margo, but for some reason she picks one nigh a month before graduation t to crawl in through his window dressed as a ninja to bring him into her crazy world. In one night they drive around Orlando FL pulling various pranks and heists. For Quentin it was an incredible night, and for the reader it was a fun read. But the next morning when Quentin shows up at school, Margo does not. She doesn’t show up the next day either, or the next and no one has seen her not even her parents. Going missing has been part of Margo’s past, but this time feels different. No one knows where she is but she left clues, and Quentin thinks they are meant for him.
At least two thirds of the book is spent trying to find Margo, using clues and hunches so obscure that I wanted to write “GET SHERLOCK” in the margins. Clues like, Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and pinpricks in the walls, stump Quentin and his friends repeatedly, and gives the book a detective quality at times. And all the time the puzzles are being sorted out, Quentin finds himself wondering if the girl he spent his life dreaming about is really the same girl he is looking for.
Paper Towns reflect its characters in the way the characters find themselves in between children and adults, and the book reads like it is in between a story for children and a story for adults. There are both elements of a “coming-of-age story” and more adult realizations and themes such as expanding the scope of life decisions and consequences. Quentin represents coming of age as he gets ready for college while Margo represents a questioning of social norms and asks questions like, “why college” and “why anything”. This mixing of genres makes for an interesting read, especially for nerd-fighters. It’s an in-between book that speaks best to those at an in-between age.
