Review: Paper Towns by John Green

Paper Towns

Author: John Green

Publication Date: October 16th, 2008

Publisher: Dutton Juvenille

Genre: YA/Contemporary

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Synopsis:

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 Q gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew.(!

My Thoughts: This is the third book I have read by John Green and if there is one thing I've noticed it's this: John Green has quite a knack for writing about unique, mysterious, quirky, bold, refreshingly weird and witty females. The other two books I read being The Fault in Our Stars and Looking for Alaska. I can't be the only one who sees similarities in character here hah. But I am not complaining! As I said before, he is really great at it. I am endlessly entertained by these female enigma's. Margo Roth Speigelman just may have been the one to rival all her predecessors.

Quentin and Margo used to play together as kids, but once they hit middle/high school they went their separate ways, although Margo always  a phantom of sorts in Quentin's mind. He seemed to have  a lot of thoughts that led back to her or memories they shared. Margo grew to become this wild child with ceaseless crazy stories and a force to be reckoned with. Quentin became one of the unpopular, less socially accepted kids, hence why their paths kind of stopped crossing.

Just before Margo goes on one of her disappearing escapades she takes Quentin on an all night adventure that consisted of crazy antics, daring adventures, and interesting sight-seeing. It was a night that changed Quentin's life. It opened doors for him as well as his eyes. He came to realize how much he still cared for Margo and how the world and life could be so different from the way he had been living and experiencing it up until now. By the time a new day breaks Quentin is a man re-born and re-energized, only to discover that Margo has up and flew the coop.

Quentin takes it upon himself to find her, following these ambiguous clues Margo left behind for him. All the while he is discovering all the sides to her he never knew existed and also finding that one person can be so very many different people when you are looking at them from someone else's point of view. Sounds complicated I know but it definitely makes sense when you read it.

Green has a gift for creating these layered characters, and for giving us a great window into raw human emotion as well as personal growth and change. I've really enjoyed reading his work and he's helped me find a new liking to contemporary novels. I would definitely recommend this book. It's a fairly easy read and is  kind of a small book. So if you are looking for some Contemporary with great characters, not to mention totally unique,  I think this and his other books I mentioned before are a great place to start :)