I'm really not sure how long this post is going to be, because the book PAPER TOWNS by John Green was so amazing that I don't even know what to say. In all honesty, the book speaks for itself. You all absolutely have to read it. The quote on the front of my copy says "Profoundingly moving" by SLJ. I don't know who that is, but they're absolutely right.
I'm sure you can tell by just this second paragraph that I loved this book. I loved it in a different way than I've loved other books. I loved this book like I loved THE TRUTH ABOUT FOREVER by Sarah Dessen, which was in a tender, intimate way. It's the kind of book I want to hold close to me because I'm not quite ready to be finished with it yet, and I'm not sure that I ever will be. The words and characters of this novel will stay with me for a very, very long time.
PAPER TOWNS is about a guy named Quentin in his final year of high school going on an adventure with the subject of his long-time affections, Margo. After this night, he believes - hopes - that he's left the right impression on her, and that it won't be a one-night-stand so to speak (they don't sleep together, FYI.) But the next day, Margo doesn't show up to school and then she's just missing all together. As Quentin makes it his mission to find her, he realizes that she is not who he thought she was, but even this realization does not stop him from piecing together her clues and creating an image of her in his head. Many Margos suddenly spring into existence as he and his friends try finding her in the final stretch before they choose what path they want to take.
I think what I loved most about this novel was the idea that you perceive people in a pretty set way, and when you finally see through the "cracks", as John Green puts it in the book, you can either be disappointed or you can accept them for who they really are. In this way, when the exact opposite of what I thought would happen in the end occurred, I had to either be upset and dislike the book, or I could roll with it. I rolled with it.
It was so much better.
If what I expected to happen had happened, then the book would have been just paper, like Margo was a paper girl - being exactly what she was expected to be and not so much herself. Because the opposite happens, this book becomes REAL.
*SPOILER ALERT *I would like to share a quote with you that stuck out for me:
"Imagining isn't perfect. You can't get all the way inside someone else. I could never have imagined Margo's anger at being found, or the story she was writing over. But imagining being someone else, or the world being something else, is the only way in" (Green, 299).
I love that quote so much because not only can I relate to it in terms of the past - I mean, I'm sure I'm not the only one disappointed by somebody or something that didn't live up to your expectations - but in many ways I feel like John Green is Margo and we are Quentin; when we finally get to the end, when we finally find Margo, what we thought would happen has been totally written over. We find out that Margo did not leave the clues intentionally, we find that what we expected to happen when she and Quentin reunited was not going to happen. John Green gave us the framework and we built up our own Margo, and then he went ahead and wrote over all of that in the end.
-Victoria
Source for Cover Art: http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=paper+towns+john+green&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1311&bih=655&tbm=isch&tbnid=mmE9f4ObqZiMHM:&imgrefurl=http://johngreenbooks.com/paper-towns/&docid=DGmgQ1nij097hM&imgurl=http://johngreenbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/PaperTowns2009_6A.jpg&w=546&h=824&ei=qUdOUJmQDaiY2wXEq4GACQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=173&vpy=110&dur=2107&hovh=276&hovw=183&tx=106&ty=131&sig=110521532527818361811&page=1&tbnh=141&tbnw=93&start=0&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:73
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