Review: Paper Towns – John Green

John Green - Paper Towns (Published by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, May 2010)

3/5

"Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs into his life—dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows. After their all-nighter ends, and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues—and they're for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew." Goodreads

Okay, so it’s disgusting that I haven’t finished a book since December and I had the audacity to set my “book challenge” on Goodreads to read 24 books this year. I have since lowered this number because it’s not realistic considering it’s the middle of August. I’ve also been trying to avoid the trailer for the film as I’ve been reading this because let’s face it, all trailers for films these days giveaway the entire plot in three minutes. Onto the review!

***SPOILERY***

Enough with the disclaimer, and moving onto the review. The more I think about it, the more this entire book annoyed me. I mean, it is classic John Green, firstly. It has the clichéd quirky character, whether that be the protagonist/narrator or the secondary characters, they’re there, looking at the world differently to everyone else. In Paper Towns, this character came in the form of Margo Roth Spiegelman—who the narrator full-name’s her every.single.time. he coo’s over her. One word: annoying. Anyway, another classic John Green element was the going on an adventure, something-out-the-norm kinda storyline (hello, Looking for Alaska, he ‘looks’ for Alaska in his own John Green way; and hello, the Fault in Our Stars, Gus and Grace go looking for this author they built up in their minds). As I read, I was getting more bored. I’ve read your books before, John Green, I don’t need to read them again.

More on the same John Green-isms. Part three: The Vessel. Counting down the hours until Q, Ben, Radar and Lacey find Margo (Roth Spiegelman). Counting down every hour. This all seems similar… ah yes, Looking for Alaska, where the book is separated into two: before and after the death of Alaska Young, and the days that follow after her car accident. Then there’s the comparison’s to the Fault in Our Stars whereby Grace visits Van Houten, her favourite author in the entire world, but when she does, she realises she just built up this idea of a man in her mind and he was a complete and utter disappointment to her. This rings bells to me because this is exactly what happened to Q with Margo. He goes searching for her with this idea that they’ll (essentially) run into the sunset together once he “rescues” her—y’know, despite (essentially) ignoring him for all these years at school since the age of ten. I’m listing these isms in terms of the order that I read his books. I read Looking for Alaska, the Fault in Our Stars, and obviously, Paper Towns which is why, I guess, it’s easy to draw these parallels between his books. They weren’t actually published in this order which is why I’m finding it hard to figure out how Paper Towns is Looking for Alaska and the Fault in Our Stars smushed together with all of his isms and parallels.

One further thing that, toward the end, really got to me, was the idea of loving Margo (Roth Spiegelman) then her turning out to be a monumental disappointment—well, she somewhat redeemed herself, but not entirely. So Q and Margo (Roth Spiegelman) spend the night together pranking people from their school that have wronged her and then she takes off. There are clues left behind—stereotypically whenever she has taken off in the past—and so Q takes it upon himself, having made this deep connection with her on the night of the pranks, to find these clues (once she’s been gone longer than usual) that she’s left behind in order to track her down and bring her home. Okay, so it drives the story to find these clues and we learn about Q’s life and his friends. They seem all right, but back to the Q-Margo (Roth Spiegelman) thread, he skips his graduation and gets involved in a collision just to save this girl, who, again, didn’t pay much attention to him except for one night where she used him as a taxi driver. This doesn’t sit right with me. Like, it’s not…believable. A direct quote, if you will; “Radar has looked up the side panel replacement I’ll need: $300 plus paint. The cost of this trip keeps going up, but … it’s a small ransom to pay for Margo.” Another, several pages down: “this girl who was an idea that I loved … I realise that the idea is not only wrong but dangerous. What a treacherous thing it is to believe that a person is more than a person.” If that’s not all doe-eyed and dumb then I’m checking out.

Don’t get me wrong, I think this is a good read in terms of structure, characterisation(ish) and the plot, great for a quick read and good for the YA audience, but for me, I probably won’t read it again. Nor Looking for Alaska. The Fault in Our Stars is slightly more special for me, so I’ll continue to read it over again. All criticisms aside, I liked how it ended because, to me, it burst Q’s bubble in that she was just a person and in reality, she wasn’t the person he wanted her to be or thought she was. It grounded the story, in a way, I think, but did so a little too late, i.e. on the very last few pages.