Author: John Green
Publisher: Bloomsbury
First Published: 2008
The thing about Margo Roth Spiegelman is that really all I could do was let her talk, and then when she stopped talking encourage her to go on, due to the facts that 1. I was incontestably in love with her, and 2. she was absolutely unprecedented in every way, and 3. she never really asked me any questions....
Quentin Jacobson has always loved Margo from afar. So when she climbs through his window to summon him on an all-night road trip of revenge he cannot help but follow. But the next morning, Q turns up at school and Margo doesn't. She's left clues to her disappearance, like a trail of breadcrumbs for Q to follow. And everything leads to one unavoidable question: who is the real Margo?
This was my first experience of reading a John Green book, and I enjoyed it. Paper Towns is a contemporary young adult novel, with themes leaning towards love, friendship and individual identity. John Green uses the characters of Quentin and Margo to show two schools of thought: conformity and nonconformity. Quentin, despite having a small friendship group feels accepted by society and wants to go to college and lead an ordinary life. Margo, on the other hand, has lots of friends but feels isolated and believes the materialistic society to be fake.
The journey that Quentin has to take to try and find Margo involves him learning to think like her. He has to listen to her music and read obscure poetry to fully try and find out who Margo really is. The entire novel could be described as an emotional roller coaster which is both happy and sad.
The novel is mostly set in Orlando, Florida. School life does dominate this novel as it is Quentin's final few weeks of high school. Without giving too much away there is a lot of teenage themes in the novel, involving parties, rebellion and complicated relationships. I think the characters in this book are likable, even Margo. Margo may come across as a snobbish, rebellious hipster, but she is her own person and not a follower of the crowd. Moreover, Margo receives little love from her parents, who are never that concerned when Margo disappears for a long period of time.
The only drawback to this novel is that; it could have been longer. Moreover, it would have been nice to have had some chapters narrated by Margo herself, so the reader can get to know her character better. This book is aimed at teenagers and young adults but I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading YA fiction. I myself have read only some YA novels, but after reading Paper Towns I will definitely read more YA fiction this year.
Rating: 9/10
No comments:
Post a Comment