Author: John Green
Reveiwed by: Alexandra Lopez
Quentin Jacobsen, most of the book referred to as Q, believes everybody gets one miracle. His just happens to be living next door to the girl of his dreams, Margo Roth Spiegelman. Margo and Quentin go way back. Even when they were nine years old, Q thought she was the most perfect female on the face of the planet, and they played together. After they found a dead man in the park, Margo appeared outside his window at night to tell him she investigated the dead man. However time goes on, they are older, in high school. They both have gone their separate ways, until one day, miss popular, Margo shows up in Q’s room asking for help. Will Q help Margo with her insane plane to get revenge on her ex? Will Q be able to tell Margo how he truly feels?
The book was something else. It starts right off with our main character Q to encounter a dead body. This will latter affect his relationship with Margo. I enjoyed that later on they separated, went their separate ways. Whether it has to do with the dead body they found as a child or not. However I think that was probably be of the few realistic parts. Everyone grows older, and high school you meet new people. I also wish Q would have just told Margo straight off the bat, he loved her. Maybe Margo wouldn't felt the need for revenge.
4 comments:
I read this as an ARC in November of 2008. I'm probably the only person alive who is not a fan of John Green.
Don't fall for an illusion......
3 Stars for Paper Towns by John Green
Once again, I seem to have a minority opinion about a book. The plot: male teen (Quentin) obsessed (infatuated) with next door neighbor (Margo Roth Spiegelman) goes through incredible lengths to find her after she disappears. He believes he finds clues that she has left for HIM so that he alone will be able to track her down and “rescue” her. He enlists the help of his friends in this search; all the while worried about this girl he has never had a relationship with beyond a grade school friendship.
Although the teens in the story did, at times, act like typical high school seniors, exhibit teen humor and antics -- the entire scenario was implausible and did not reflect the emotions, activities, and obsessions typical of any 17 year old boy I've ever seen. I checked out my thoughts on this with Chance -- a fairly typical 17 year old soccer player who also found it difficult to believe the male character's actions and motivations. This book did not ring true on the most fundamental levels - it was pretty unrealistic and sort of pathetic that this boy fancies himself on a noble quest and sees himself as a hero, ultimately, hopefully to her. Unrequited teen infatuation, angst, drama, a car trip -- all of it hard to swallow.
The novel started off to be entertaining but then it seemed to dwindle into tediousness. The overly long focus on the words and analysis of Leaves of Grass, and the plodding and painstaking descriptions of all the search attempts left me bored and impatient. Many times I just wanted it all to be over with and was tempted to just read the ending. I kept going hoping that the conclusion would be so astounding as to redeem the rest of the filler. It didn't. The last few chapters were just ……..completely unbelievable. I did learn something very interesting that I did not know, and that was the definition and explanation of the term “Paper Town.”
The morals of this story: Stop imagining positive qualities and characteristics of people you don't really know. They aren't worth it. Get to know the real person and see people how they really are, not the way you want them to be. Do not fall for an illusion.
Recommendation: Borrow, don't buy.
Haha, I remember going through a mini John Green phase at the end of last year, when I read Looking for Alaska and part of Fault In Our Stars. I liked him rather well, but was not completely obsessed with him as is most of teenage readers this present day. Indeed his books are very uniquely written, and interesting, but they can get a little predictable. I do want to read the majority of his popular books just to make my own personal opinion on them, so I will try and read this some time.
I didn't like this book very much. It had a good storyline in Part I, but after that the story seemed to drag. The ending wasn't very ideal either.
I thought this book was interesting enough. I like John Green but I had a hard time trying to get into it at first but as the story progressed I began to become more interesting. I liked it all in all and it made me interested in reading his other books.
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