Book Chat | Paper Towns by John Green

Paper Towns

AUTHOR: JOHN GREEN
PUBLISHED: 22ND SEPTEMBER 2009 BY SPEAK
GENRE: YA, CONTEMPORARY
SERIES: STANDALONE
FORMAT I OWN: PAPERBACK
PAGES: 305
MY RATING: 5/5 STARS
BUY IT: BOOK DEPOSITORY

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Blurb:

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…

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE GOOREADS PAGE

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My Review:

Hello bookworms! I’m back with another book chat! I hope you’ve got your favourite warm beverage sitting beside you because we’re about to jump into my thoughts on this AMAZING John Green book! This book was a funny, light-hearted adventure that also gets you thinking about life and the way we see the people around us. 

You guys already know I’m going to talk about the characters first. The characters that John Green created in this book were all so lovely. The main character and all the side characters had so much colour and personality and were definitely a highlight.
Quentin Jacobsen is our main character, a boy about to graduate high school. He lives next door to the girl he is completely in love with – Margo Roth Spiegelman. Quentin is a very nervous, withdrawn person. He’s not one known to take risks and break the rules. He experiences some major character development as this story progresses. Through his experiences with Margo, he learns about life and that sometimes taking a risk and doing something out of the ordinary is good for you. And he learns that the outside appearance of a person, may not necessarily define who they are inside. I loved Quentin and his personality, he was the more mature out of his group of friends but he was quirky!

Margo is not seen much in the book besides in the first and last part of the book. She’s unpredictable, adventurous, daring and a very brooding character. Quentin sees her as this magnificent creature, but besides the magnificence, there is a deeper, more personal and withdrawn girl within her that gets developed throughout the novel.

The side characters, Radar and Ben brought a lot of colour and humour to this novel! Radar is a tech genius and is very compulsive with his technology stuff and he has some wise moments in the book. I believe Radar is black [African American, maybe?], which adds some lovely diversity into this book. Ben was hilarious, especially during the road-trip part of the book. I won’t say how, you can find out yourselves, but just know that he was the source of a lot of my laughter! At some points he came out as a jerk but I realised I may have misunderstood his character due to Quentin’s feelings towards Ben at certain moments. 

The plot was very unique and flowed well. It was split up into three parts. Part one was all about Quentin and Margo’s all-nighter revenge-adventure. This was very enjoyable and gives insight and development into Quentin and Margo’s personalities. It sets up for how the rest of the book plays out.

Part two basically encompassed the investigation into Margo’s disappearance. Quentin is obsessed with finding her through the ‘little clues’ he believes she has left behind and tries to get his friends involved with it. In this part we see him struggle to juggle [oh look, that rhymes!] this obsession to find Margo with making time to spend with his friends and focusing on graduation. It’s in this part that we see him unravel some very thought-inspiring things such as the way we see people and how our perceptions don’t always equate to the way people actually are, realises things about friendship and about life. He starts to get more daring and less nervous about doing things that typically would make him worry.

And then there was part three. Holy cow, this part was my absolute favourite. This is where the road-trip aspect comes in and where the whole gang of Quentin and his friends come together. This is the most fast-paced part of the book and the funniest part. If I had to count how many times I laughed, I’d probably have to say 5 or more times. Yes, that sounds right. 

The conclusion of this book didn’t end the way I wanted it to, but I guess as a reader we can’t always get what we want. The end made me sad, but at any rate, I still loved the book and although it was a sad/unsatisfying ending for me, John Green kept it REAL. So kudos to him for that.

John Green’s writing style is as usual, wonderful. Slightly poetic, very realistic and engrossing and I just can’t get enough of it! I think the next book of his I need to read is Looking for Alaska [which some people criticize Paper Towns for having similar characters].

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I recommend this book to all of you, especially if you’re interested in a funny, thought-provoking novel with wonderful writing. I loved this book immensely and I would love for you to comment down below if you have read this book so we can discuss it together! And if you haven’t read it, tell me if this review has intrigued you into adding this book to your TBR [to-be-read list]!

~ josiethebookworm