Paper Towns
by John Green
Published by Dutton
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Reviewed by Harold N. Walters
When they were nine years old, Quentin Jacobsen and Margo Roth Spiegelman found a dead man beneath a tree. Now, at eighteen, in their final year of high school, they break into Sea World and dance at dawn.
Margo Roth Spiegelman is a girl who believes in random capitalization because “the rules of capitalization are so unfair to the words in the middle.” She is a girl who “loved mysteries so much that she became one.” She is the girl who during the years since their discovery of the body under the tree Quentin has loved from a distance, from across the halls of their high school–given that Margo has become a member of an “in” clique.
On the night of their Sea World adventure Margo, appears at Quentin’s bedroom window for the first time since they were children. Dressed as a ninja, Margo coaxes Quentin to join her on an evening of vengeance as she sets out to “bring down the rain” on those friends whom she feels have betrayed her.
The next day, Margo disappears from Jefferson Park, an Orlando subdivision. When he learns of her absence, Quentin believes it is his responsibility to find her and bring her home.
While his closest friends, Ben and Radar, become increasingly caught up in prom preparations, Quentin becomes obsessed with his quest to locate Margo. He is convinced that she has left him clues to her whereabouts, especially clues embedded in lines she has underscored in a worn copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.
Quentin’s search leads him to various south Florida “pseudovisions,” unfinished and abandoned subdivisions. He believes these subdivisions are the paper towns that Margo had referred to as empty and phoney on the night he assisted her with her vendetta.
Paper Towns is the most honest novel for young adults that I have read recently. Green’s characters are believable people. They represent a genuine cross-section of teenage behavior that is likely to be found in any contemporary American town. Senior high school students ought to read Paper Towns before they graduate.
Armchair Interviews says: Young adults need to read this book.
Author’s Web site: http://www.SparksFlyUp.com