"Paper Towns" by John Green


     Green, John. (2008) Paper Towns. New York, NY: Dutton Books. ISBN: 978-0-525-47818-8

I’m not new to the world of John Green and I understand that he like to take perfectly normal people and make them seem amazing, but I did not like Margo. After reading this book, I still do not like Margo. I just can’t. In the first few pages she is touted as this amazing creature that graces the neighborhood of Quentin, our narrator. She is pretty, popular and charming! She’s got it all, except that she has a tendency to run away with the intention that people come looking for her to prove how much they love her.

Margo shows up at Q’s house and demands he come along on her revenge tour of the city and the two wreak havoc all night. Then, she just vanishes and everybody is concerned and looking for her. Margo leaves clues for the searchers and Ben painstakingly follows them, even the dangerous and obscure ones! He even skips his own prom to go find her only to find that she is doing nothing but being completely unremarkable and unrepentant. Honestly, I hoped that something awful had happened to keep her away so that Q and his friends could rescue her and make her seem slightly less selfish, but alas, John Green had different ideas.

This book drove me crazy. Margo is the quintessential self-centered teen who cannot fathom that the world is not her oyster. Granted, Quentin did learn a lot about himself and what he is capable of, I could not get over what he was put through in the process. In the end, Q and Margo bury their child-selves in Agloe, New York (a paper town that is on a map but doesn’t really exist) and prepare to move on separately with their lives.

For Q, Margo basically represents a dream goal that he will bend thoughts and wits to achieve, only to find out that it was superficial from the start. It is a classic case of life being about the journey and not the destination. Reaching Margo was anticlimactic, the adventure to find her, however, was pretty fulfilling for both Q and myself.  I’ll still never forgive Margo though.

More from the Author

Buy this Book

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Videos and QR Codes in the Library

Image
Hey there bloggers (and blogettes…bloggerettes?), The YouTube! So today I’m going to join the modern world and talk about YouTube in the library! I know lots of y’all out there (like me) think YouTube is a dangerous territory, which it can be, but it is also a valuable too. Who uses YouTube constantly? STUDENTS! What better way to share info with them than by using their own beloved communicative vehicle? I looked at a few neat videos posted by librarians and they’re sharing some really great stuff with a really wide audience! Here are some I thought would be a really valuable learning tool for the kids! This helps kids build a bibliography using GALE articles and easybib.  “How to Pay for College” walkthrough (Fearless FAFSA).  How to do research using Ebsco Host, (A skill I didn’t learn until halfway through college).  A graphic US Constitution review, since we know government can be…complicated. Here are some I really think the kids will love an
Read more

When is the right season to plant podcasts?

Podasts are really popular now and it’s easy to see why! In a world where people have earbuds in most of their multi-tasking lives, it makes sense to listen to something that is informative or funny. Enter: Podcasts! As a librarian, you can use a weekly podcast to do book teasers, give a local school news cast, inform teachers about new edu-tech (I don’t know if that’s a word, but I like it) or literally anything else that strikes your fancy! There are quite a few podcast-creating apps out there, so you want to check out your options thoroughly. A couple friends and I (Shout-out to Christy Ta and Heather Cowham) did some research into what a library should look and feel like recently and here is our visually aided podcast sharing our findings.   Enjoy! This one was made with a combo of WeVideo and Podbean .  P odbean was used to create the original vocal track. It is SUPER easy to use and has a handy phone app that makes podcasting-on-the-go easy peasy lizard squeezy
Read more