Paper Towns by John Green

Paper Towns
John Green
Dutton Juvenile (2008)
ISBN 9780525478188
Reviewed by Avni Gupta (age 15) for Reader Views (9/08)

When I started “Paper Towns,” I knew that I was in for a great new experience. I knew that John Green had written other amazing books, like “Looking for Alaska” and “An Abundance of Katherines,” each with a humorous male protagonist and a riveting storyline. I had hoped that “Paper Towns” would live up to my expectations, and it definitely didn’t disappoint.

In the beginning, Quentin, know as Q to anybody who knows him, is reminiscing about years past when he and the illustrious Margo Roth Spiegelman had been best friends. He remembers the last day that they had been thought of as such. They were both nine and were in the park when they found the body of a man. Margo wanted to stay with it and Q wanted to go. Q ended up winning, but in the end, that was the last day that they were ever really thought of as best friends and went to just being neighbors.

Later, during the night of the day that Q was thinking about him and Margo, she comes to his window and asks him for help. Even though it is the middle of the night and Q doesn’t really want to go, and he knows that Margo is only asking him because he can use his mom’s van, he goes anyway. It turns out that Margo needs help getting revenge on her good-for-nothing boyfriend who was cheating on her and all of her friends who kept it from her. It ends up being the best day, well night actually, that Q has ever had. It also just happens to be the last time that anyone sees or hears from Margo.

Once he figures that out, it becomes a race against time for Q. He has to find Margo, the only girl that he has ever loved, and fast. Who knows, maybe he’ll end up finding himself along the way.

I absolutely loved this book! There wasn’t a part in it that I would have changed! The way that the book was written made it hard for the reader to guess what was going to happen next, and that made it all the better! It made sure that I kept on reading. My absolute favorite part of “Paper Towns” by John Green would have to be trying to figure out Margo’s clues. Whenever I thought I was close, another clue came up and I ended up being totally off target.