Paper Towns

Paper Towns by John Green
Published by Speak in 2009
305 pages
Warning: This novel contains explicit language, crude language from teen boys, description of nudity, sensual and sexual encounters and alcohol involving teens.
Genre: Adventure, Mystery

Margo Ruth Spiegelman is the eye candy of Quentin Jacobsen. The two are neighbors and have known each other throughout the years; but, Q is kind of a nerd. And Margo is kind of popular, so she doesn't always give him the attention he wants from her, especially at school. Margo enlists the help of Q on an all night rampage of revenge; finally, Q has made is in! Relishing in the attention, Q delights in the friendship that he hopes will follow. Unfortunately, when he returns to school, Margo has run away. Desperate to find her, Q believes she has left specific clues just for him and only him to find her. The search begins.

This is the second John Green novel I have read, and I have fallen in love with his writing even more. His humor is just hilarious. Some of my favorite excerpts:

"I don't believe in prom," I reminded her as she rounded a corner. I expertly angled my raisin bran to accommodate the g-forces. I'd done this before. (11)

"I like driving, anyway-this vehicle may be a minivan, but it's my minivan. Radar scoots out of his seat and into the first bedroom, while I grab the steering wheel and hold it steady, quickly stepping over the kitchen and into the driver's seat.

Traveling, I am finding, teaches you a lot of things about yourself. For instance, I never thought myself to be the kind of person who pees into a mostly empty bottle of Bluefin energy drink while driving through South Carolina at seventy-seven miles per hours-but in fact I am that kind of person. Also, I never previously knew that if you mix a lot of pee with a little Bluefin energy drink, the result is this amazing incandescent turquoise color. It looks so pretty that I want to put the cap on the bottle and leave it in the cup holder..." (261)

There are so many laughable moments in this book; I love how John Green writes, he is brilliant. This novel is also fascinating because of the self-discovery that each character seems to go through individually, and how it changes the group they collectively belong to.

John Green writes novels like Looking for Alaska which are very heavy because of the content and subject matter. Paper Towns is different; for people who want to read John Green, this is a good start because it is less edgier then his other novels. But, it still has its edgy moments with language.