Review: Paper Towns

Author: John Green
Publish date: 2008
Source: Library
"When Margo Roth Spiegelman beckons Quentin Jacobsen in the middle of the night—dressed like a ninja and plotting an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows her. Margo’s always planned extravagantly, and, until now, she’s always planned solo. After a lifetime of loving Margo from afar, things are finally looking up for Q . . . until day breaks and she has vanished. Always an enigma, Margo has now become a mystery. But there are clues. And they’re for Q. Printz Medalist John Green returns with the trademark brilliant wit and heart-stopping emotional honesty that have inspired a new generation of readers."

I ADORED this book. I'd been wanting to read it for a while but just kind of put it off, then I started it a couple days ago and did not want to put it down. I really enjoy books that have a bit of a mystery to them, which Paper Towns had a lot of, plus the characters were fantastic. I absolutely loved the dialogue and thought it was spot-on for high school boys, whom I am around rather frequently. The characters, and therefore the writing, were hilarious and I found myself laughing out loud quite a few times while reading.

I really liked that the main character, Quentin (or Q) was a male. I find that most of the novels I read have female protagonists and are usually more geared toward female readers, which is fine for me, but not so great when male students ask me for book recommendations. This is one that I would most definitely recommend to all students, regardless of gender, and it is now my mission to add this to my classroom library (in addition to devouring the rest of John Green's books as soon as possible).

SPOILER: I also really liked learning what paper towns were. I find that concept fascinating and I now want to take a road trip "visiting" all the paper towns in the US. I love when I learn something nerdily interesting in a book and then become obsessed with it. Sidenote: I am also obsessed with really small towns, like somewhere in North Dakota with 3 residents or something. Love it.