BOOK REVIEW: Paper Towns by John Green

9:59 PM

Original title: Paper Towns

Author: John Green

Year of Publication: 2008

Number of pages: 305 [epub]

Available in: English, Spanish, French

I read it in: English

"All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too."

Quentin is about to graduate from High School when Margo, his neighbour, childhood friend and the girl he's been in love with from afar, visits him one night and asks him to go with her to a revenge mission. When one of the best nights of his life is done, Quentin goes back to sleep thinking that his life will change forever, and it does, but not in the way he was expecting: Margo has disappeared and has left him a series of clues that he is willing to follow, with some help from old –and new- friends.

Paper Towns is a unique book, definitely. I started to read it a bit reticently because I left my YA (Young Adult – book genre) phase way back, and even though I’ve always enjoyed John Green’s books, I mostly read them in High School when I could strongly identify with them (Looking for Alaska, I’m talking about you). But even if I started reading Paper Towns, left it for 5 months and then came back to it, I was a bit surprised to find out that I had a lot of fun reading it.

One thing that I now find a bit boring about YA novels in general is that they tend to be really blatant about their ultimate message, so you don’t really have to think about it. But nonetheless, I enjoyed seeing as Quentin learned that it’s not ok to put expectations of perfection on anyone, and that Margo Roth Spiegelman, the courageous, fun, mysterious Margo, wasn’t there for his personal growth or learning. As John Green himself said: “[…]Mostly, I wanted the reader to be conscious that s/he is only seeing Margo through Q’s eyes, and that Q—at least for much of the novel—knows absolutely nothing about the girl he says he loves.”

Something else that happened while I was reading the book: I got awfully nostalgic of when I was younger and I was so obsessed with hating my hometown. Not that I don’t now, but I’m not obsessed anymore. Margo’s feeling towards everything that she left behind were exactly what I would’ve loved to read about in High School and, incidentally, one of the things that shaped my life the most, like it did to Margo.

At the end of the day, this is one of the most fun books John Green has ever written, it made me laugh out loud, it is short, it is easy and it might just leave you feeling a bit gloomy because you’re not in High School anymore. But if you are… then you should read it and enjoy.

Oh! And this review wasn’t published on a Wednesday because I was waiting for the right timing: the Paper Towns movie trailer premiered today in the morning, starring Nat Wolff and Cara Delevingne, and for what I could see in the trailer, it’s exactly as I pictured it.