John Green - Paper Towns.

John Green – Paper Towns.

Rating – 4 out of 5.

Hey Everyone! I mentioned on my Instagram yesterday about the little break I had taken from posting. I needed the break from Social Media, whether that be for posting my reviews or my personal accounts. I am back now though! And more than happy to be nerding out about books with you all.

My first review in almost two weeks is for Paper Towns by John Green. And I found this book wasn’t quite to my personal tastes. I AM SO SORRY JOHN GREEN PLEASE FORGIVE ME. I understood it to be about finding yourself and accepting who you are. But I wish there was more about it. They investigated Margo’s disappearance and I wanted there to be more to it at the end than what was there. That being said the message behind it is a good one. We all cling to our lives, we are reluctant to change, to get out of our comfort zones. And this is something that Margo and Q both did in this book. They made a change and did something different.

Synopsis:

The thing about Margo Roth Spiegelman is that really all I could ever 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 Jacobsen 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?

A Little About The Author:

John Green is the award-winning, no.1 bestselling author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherine’s, Paper Towns, Will Grayson, Will Grayson (with David Levithan) and The Fault in Our Stars. His many accolades include the Printz Medal, a Paper Honor and the Edgar Award. John was selected by TIME magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.

A Little About The Story:

This story was about high school and the changes that come with the ending of it. We watch as Q and his friends stretch out of their comfort zones in order to find Margo whilst trying to make the most of their last few weeks in school. We follow as Margo leaves behind a life that she didn’t want. She left to go and find who she is, she knew what she wanted to do and she followed through with it.

The main character in this book is Quentin Jacobsen. This is his journey of acceptance. Accepting what is, rather than what he wants it to be. Margo. He painted her as and ideal rather than the whole person she was. We witness as he learns more about this person that he thought he was in love with. Quentin’s best friends are by his side throughout the whole book. Ben and Radar.

At the start of the book Margo sneaks into Q’s house to convince him to come on an ‘adventure’ of sorts. Getting revenge on people who were supposed to be her friends yet had wronged her. At the end of the night they both go home. The next morning Q shows up at school and Margo doesn’t. She is missing. Quentin makes it his task to find Margo or find out where she is. He, and his two best friend look for clues, or hints that she may have left and they go on a little adventure of their own trying to find her. It brings the group closer together while they do a lot of things for the first time, in a time of their lives when things are coming to an end.

This whole book is an adventure for the characters. I wish the ending was more climactic but that’s realism I guess. Not everything has a big finale. A big party, or a tragic death. Not every story has a war to fight. Sometimes we just need to read something real. And this was it. Real. About a real boy who loves the idea of a real girl. A real girl who wanted to go off to start her real life away from her small town.

My favourite character is Margo. She is an enigma wrapped up in an enigma. Every time we start to think we know her, we get more information that changes her character entirely. She is really different to everything that she is supposed to be and I love that. People aren’t always predictable, they aren’t one thing or another and I adore that.

Everyone can relate to this book in one way or another. We all had that time at the end of high school, where we’re all a little bit sad at the finality of it all, yet we’re all super excited to see what our futures hold. Of experiencing things for the last time, the last time we’ll go to a school dance, or the last school dinner we’ll have with our friends, the last drive to school. We can all relate to little aspects of this book. Making it perfect for the Young Adult crowd it was intended for.

To start off on whether I liked the book or not, I would like to say that this isn’t my kind of book. I love fantasy, I love wars and love thrown in the middle, I love fighting for the world you live in and self-discovery. HOWEVER. This book is brilliant at sending out the message it intended. John Green and his talents have done it again.

My favourite part of the book was near the beginning, when Margo gets Q to come on their little revenge trip. This was the start of pushing Q out of his comfort zone, of what gets him to try new things in a time of lasts.

My least favourite part of the book? The ending of this book suited the rest of the book. So as much as it wasn’t what I like to see in my usual reads, I can’t say that I would change it either. My least favourite part could maybe be Quentin’s ideas of what it would be like when he found Margo. He doesn’t consider what she is going through or what made her leave, just the reasons he has for wanting her back.

I would recommend this book to people who genuinely love John Green’s other pieces of work. He writes hard-hitting messages tailored to reach the younger audiences. Puts important words in the form of a nice reading story and he is really good at it.

So there has it, some of my honest opinions on Paper Towns by John Green. As I was writing this, I couldn’t find a justified reason to leave it’s J’s Rating at a 3. Personal preference is not a good enough reason to give a low score. So I am changing my rating to a 4. If you have read this book, I would love to hear what you thought about it. If you haven’t read it, I hope my writing encourages you to pick up the book and have a look.

Stay Curious! J x