In a mix-up of what book I meant to get, I thought I was grabbing The Fault in Our Stars from the library. What I actually picked up was Paper Towns and boy was I in for a surprise.
Paper Towns turned out to be a book that you needed to read the entire book before deciding how you felt about it. I surprised myself in the end when I really did end up liking it, after a week of trying to convince myself to just keep going! What is it about? Let’s dig in.
Synopsis
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.
My Thoughts
I had no idea what the background of the book was. Usually when something is labeled as young adult I can pick it up, read it quick & love it or hate it. I heard John Green’s name thrown around left and right this summer because of the move for The Fault in Our Stars. Clearly I didn’t pay enough attention to the name of it as I grabbed the wrong book.
In the end I’m really glad I did read Paper Towns and I will definitely be heading back to pick up the CORRECT John Green book soon. I would not on the other hand classify this as a young adult book. It is for a little bit older of an audience so I would say it is more of a new adult book.
On more than one occasion I found myself telling a book loving friend that this book was all about suicide and it was giving me bad dreams. I won’t spoil what the book wound up really being about but it was not nearly as gruesome as I expected it to be.
It is safe to say that it 100% deserves the top spot (that it currently holds) for Teen And Young Adult Runaways Fiction on Amazon. I thought the discovery of what Paper Towns really are was a really interesting and great twist on the book. They are something that will definitely keep my attention in the future.
I wound up waiting (impatiently) for a Breakfast Club type ending where all of the characters share what they learned about each other through their journey. While there was no jumping at the end of the book, the ending was a pretty good wrap-up of the direction the book lead us. I would not be disappointed if there was a sequel or the story told from Margo’s perspective.
Each of the characters in the book grew up in their own way and it was nice to see in the end. There was a little bit of a love story, a little bit of death but most of all it was a group of teenagers trying to figure out their place in the world while tracking down a friend. What was one last road trip before college?
Have you read Paper Towns? How did you feel about it?