Published by: Speak on September 22nd 2009
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary-Romance, Mystery, Fiction
Pages: 305
Format: Paperback (gift)
Book Blurb:
Who is the real Margo?
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...
I started
reading Paper Towns, not knowing a single thing about it. Well of course,
except for the main character’s names. I decided to read it because the movie
was coming up, which comes out pretty soon. Who in the world wants to watch an
adaptation without having a single knowledge about it? Definitely not me.
However, I did imagine it to be a romantic one, although the title greatly
suggests that it’s not. But then, who knows? It’s a John Green book anyways.
You know as I type this, I’ve come to realize that MAYBE, just maybe, John
Green is a lot like Margo Roth Spiegelman. He writes his books, plans it
carefully. With all the intricate details, and then just leave it with an
unsatisfying conclusion. Which leads us the READERS wanting more. And then he
writes another one and repeats the same routine. Yeah, it sucks. But it’s a
great experience after all.
OKAY.
Haha. I’m getting way out of my topic here. Did you even realize that you
actually clicked a BOOK REVIEW blog post and not a COMPARE JOHN GREEN AND MARGO
ROTH SPIEGELMAN post? Hahaha. Fooled y’all. Nah. I’m just kidding. Here it
goes.
As
I’ve said earlier, I thought of Paper Towns as a romance novel. What the heck.
I always think that a book with two main characters of opposite gender is a
romance. I’m cheesy like that. BUT, it turns out that Paper Towns delves into a
deeper topic like knowing oneself and knowing others. If you do not know what
this is about:
Paper
Towns is a novel about a senior named Quentin, who’s deeply amazed with the
adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman. They were childhood friends and eventually
drifted apart as they grew older. One night, Margo enters his window and asks
for help, inviting him into an adventure that he once just heard about. After
this unusual event that occurred to Q, he went back to school only to find out
that Margo has been missing AGAIN. He felt bad, thinking that he was now a part
of her adventure since that night. But then he actually is. It is for him to
find out how, when, and where to find the mysterious Margo Roth Spiegelman. And
to eventually find out that there is more about the girl that he loves.
Here’s
the thing. The book, as I can describe it, is very much like MY LIFE. And
probably someone else’s too. There are parts where I get too excited while reading
it, but then there are also parts of the book where I almost want to put the
book in a shredder. HAHA. BUT I don’t do that. Like seriously. It’s a precious
little book. My precious little book.
I can
write about this book for years and not even finish it. But mainly, what I like
about Paper Towns is that it teaches us something. Every John Green book
teaches us something. It tugs the strings of our hearts. All along we’ve been
thinking that we know how the world goes, seeing the cruelty, judgement and
all. Truth is, WE DON’T. We barely know what it is. How it works. We think that
by seeing the negativity and positivity that it brings us, we have already
deciphered it. Well, we’re wrong. We don’t even know the reason behind these
negativities, how it occurs. WE ALL HAVE A DIFFERENT VIEW OF WHAT THE WORLD IS.
Other
than that, I liked the writing style. It’s hilarious, it’s very teenage-y but
also with that maturity that you can never get out of John Green’s books. I
loved the way he used metaphors in the entire book and how it made Quentin
think deeper and in a fully different view. And also the character development.
Especially Quentin’s and Margo’s. On Quentin’s part though, I kind of knew it
was coming. But then there’s this part where I was also surprised by the
changes. Like, there was a part in the middle where he started accepting that
the idea of the Margo he likes, is different from what Margo really is. I liked
that a lot. As for Margo, I liked her at the end. Which I cannot spoil so I
can’t tell it here. READ IT.
This
book was never boring. I liked it.
