Paper Towns

Author: John Green
Recommended Age: Young Adult
Publisher: Dutton Books
ISBN:  978-0-14-241493-4
Year Published: 2008
No. Pages: 305
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Main Character Gender: Male 
Read & Reviewed by: Laura


"The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightning, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us. I could have seen it rain frogs. I could have stepped foot on Mars. I could have been eaten by a whale. I could have married the queen of England or survived months at sea. But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman.”

After one wild night spent with popular and reckless Margo Roth Spiegelman, straight laced Quentin feels alive. The night begins when Margo taps at Quentin’s window, ready to take revenge on her cheating boyfriend and lying friends. Quentin reluctantly helps her and they set out into a night of pranks, breaking and entering. Quentin wishes the night could last forever, but as we all know, all good things must come to an end. Before he knows it, the night is over and he and Margo have said their goodbyes. Quentin returns to his house at 5 a.m., his mind crammed with things he might say to her at school the next day.

Margo disappears the next day with only weeks to go until graduation. Quentin becomes obsessed with solving the mystery of where she is. Following a trail of clues, Quentin and a few of his friends take off on an adventure that includes an abandoned strip mall and a road trip across several states.

Told from the point of view of seventeen-year-old Quentin Jacobsen, author John Green has created a world that is believable and entertaining. He has created characters that are easy to relate to, settings that are easy to believe and a story line that keeps you hooked. Because of his admirable descriptions, I found that it was easy for me to understand the characters thoughts and feelings. For me it was clear why characters reacted certain ways to the events that occurred. Also, the dialogue was realistic and reflected how seventeen-year-olds speak.

I thought Green shaped the story in a way that was both smart and unexpected. For me the first unexpected scene was at the beginning when after years of not talking to one another, Margo and Quentin suddenly continued a friendship which had previously been considered dead. Their wild night together was a more intimate relationship than I would expect to from two people who hardly spoke previously. There were some moments when I thought they’d get caught in their pranks. These pranks created great butterfly moments because they were over the top, like sneaking into a house and shaving off a peer's eyebrow. When ever you'd think they'd get caught, they never do with Margo leading the way.

I found the story was far from predicable, from the first line to the last. It kept me in suspense throughout the entire book. This coming of age novel enabled the characters to learn about themselves and will be a welcome read for both males and female.

Author John Green has written many books including Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, and Will Grayson, Will Grayson.