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Paper Towns by John Green
*****
Many of my co-workers will jaw your ear off about how wonderful John Green is. He is placed upon the pedestal of young adult literature far above criticism and slander. His previous books, An Abundance of Katherines and Looking for Alaska, both feature teenagers going on emotional and physical journeys that test their character and define their personalities. My one criticism is that the male protagonist in all three of his books is the same guy. He's likable without being alienatingly popular, unusually intelligent and mature without seeming too adult to be believable, and in love with a girl he probably can't have due to his ineptness with social interaction. Which brings me to his females. John Green's females are amazing. He must have had some kind of unrequited love for this sort of girl because she also is the same in each book. She's beautiful, strong-willed, constantly out-witting Green's males, and maybe just a little bit too quirky to be really real. To his credit, that is somewhat the point (in all three books). No one is as perfect as they might seem, and to idealize a person in that way is to do them a disservice. Everyone deserves to be imperfect, and until you embraces someone's flaws, you can't ever really love them.
I just wanted to get my criticism out of the way so that I can continue on to say that I truly loved Paper Towns. While the previous two were great books, compelling and innovative (featuring footnotes in An Abundance of Katherines!), Green's talent for characterization, plot structure, and unique details comes together to create his strongest book thus far. In particular, Green utilizes Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass throughout the story to illustrate his ideas about humanity and connecting and life as it should be lived. Had I read this book in high school when I originally read Leaves of Grass, I think I would have realized its signifigance a lot sooner. He does a brilliant job highlighting meaningful passages and tying them into real life feelings and situations. In addition, he very skillfully juxtaposes all of Quentin and his friends' adventures over their day-to-day life highschool issues that it all seems very possible and accessible. I think many stories can come across as well-written but not really relatable as a result of authors forgetting that teenagers, in general, have school and graduation and parents. Too often, the parents are not present because they would impede storylines.
Quentin has loved Margo his whole life. She's the girl next door but more so. She's perfect, and, of course, Quentin feels as though he will never have a chance with anyone so untouchable. This is all very stereotypical; however, due to a traumatic childhood event that they shared, Margo views Quentin as someone she can trust, and the first quarter of the book involves her and Quentin carrying out Margo's brilliantly constructed plan to get revenge on several classmates. At this point, I was really hoping that this was not all the book was going to be. It was funny, definitely, but there wasn't a whole lot of substance outside of Quentin's soliloquies about Margo's beauty and intelligence. Luckily, Green pulled it all together to really instill some important self-discoveries for each character. The rest of the book, without giving away too much, is part Quentin discovering a lot of things about himself and friendship and Margo and part adventure as Quentin and his friends attempt to track Margo down via subtle clues she has left for them. It's all very clever and hilarious and insightful and trying to give a synopsis is tricky without spoiling anything. So, I'll stop here and hope that this was enough to convince people to read it.
(Released in September of 2008)
