When Margo Roth Spiegelman beckons Quentin Jacobsen in the middle of the night – dressed like a ninja and plotting an ingenious campaign of revenge – he follows her. Margo’s always planned extravagantly, and, until now, she’s always planned solo. After a lifetime of loving Margo from afar, things are finally looking up for Q… until day breaks and she has vanished. Always an enigma, Margo has now become a mystery. But there are clues. And they’re for Q.
Printz Medalist John Green returns with the trademark brilliant wit and heart-stopping emotional honesty that have inspired a new generation of readers.
Paper Towns is one of John Green’s most dynamic novels. The plot is far more expansive than his other work and it’s driven by a relatively unrealistic character. But, like all John Green books are to me, it’s insightful in the oddest way.
I think it embodies some of the most honest interpretations of teenage ideology. Green does this by taking an element of what it’s like to be young and dumb and perceivably invincible and then exaggerating it so there’s no chance you could miss the underlying point.
If it weren’t for his humor, Paper Towns would be a horribly sad book. (It still may be horribly sad to some.) Personally, I love when stories don’t end the way you want them to as long as it’s because the ending takes a more realistic turn.
It’s not Looking for Alaska; but it’s a close second.
I want to also take this time to say that, I want to be more diverse in the books I cover on this site. But, in order to do that, I have to actually read them first. I’m hoping that my #blackoutbestsellerlist purchases will put me on the right track. At the same time, I’m asking myself why I these books weren’t already on my shelf. This introspection will take time but I hope that as I continue to work on hollyandoates, I can create a space that includes all voices: white and BIPOC.
I’ve also decided that I will not use my heritage, which I have directly and indirectly, ignored for the last 24 years of my life as a means to pretend that I am not responsible for educating myself on societal issues.
Photo and synopsis from The Lit Bar
H O L L Y + O A T E S 