Paper Towns
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Review
`There is . . . real pathos and humour in Q's attempts to follow Margo's trail' --The Financial Times
`A funny and quirky school-story and road trip that will appeal to older readers who, like Margo, yearn for something more'
--Bookfest
`A funny and quirky school-story and road trip that will appeal to older readers who, like Margo, yearn for something more'
--Bookfest
Product Description
Who is the real Margo? 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. She has disappeared. Q soon learns that there are clues in her disappearance ...and they are for him. Trailing Margo's disconnected path across the USA, the closer Q gets, the less sure he is of who he is looking for.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
It is difficult to write a book for any age group which manages to be funny, serious, interesting, gripping and realistic without losing some form of consistency or structure. But John Green, in his third novel, truly raises the bar. His characters are rich but they never shy from saying things startlingly real and believable. Q, for example, is the perfect teenager without every falling into cliche - he's a bit of a nerd but he's strong and commanding. Margo may be the 'oddball' but, even without personally being in the narrative for most of the book, proves to have depth that backs up her status. The plot is gripping, without driving the characters in any way that does not make perfect sense. The first part, for all it's random requests of Margo for Q gives us something stunningly romantic and original as a way to meet and understand the characters. I can not type higher praise for this book - personally, I think it is one of the books which has stayed with me the most since I first read it, full as it is of images I am sure I will never shake in my lifetime.
I would recommend anyone, young or old, to read this book. What it will give you is an experience that not only will you enjoy but that maybe you might get something out of. I live in the UK, and I had to buy this book on Amazon because it is not published here; apparently, the UK are not receptive to YA novels of this nature. All I can say is, it's a shocking indictment on us, and not the book.
I would recommend anyone, young or old, to read this book. What it will give you is an experience that not only will you enjoy but that maybe you might get something out of. I live in the UK, and I had to buy this book on Amazon because it is not published here; apparently, the UK are not receptive to YA novels of this nature. All I can say is, it's a shocking indictment on us, and not the book.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
To be totally honest, when I received this book for review I wasn't all that sure about it. Having never read any of John Green's previous work, I don't really know why this was other than I hated the cover. However I'm glad I was sent this one, as it turned out to be the most beautifully written story and I adored every minute.
Quentin (Q) has been infatuated with his next-door neighbour, Margo, since they were both 9 years old and were involved in a traumatic experience. But to Q, Margo is completely unobtainable; she's magical, courageous, wild and unique where as he's a bit of a geek, self conscious and timid. I wasn't expecting to like and relate to Q as much as I did, not being a teenage male myself. But I'm sure we've all known someone like Margo, who we see as so perfect but completely out of our league, and idolise so much they become almost godlike in our imaginations. He also has all the qualities required so that anyone, of any age can identify with him, with flaws as human as they come. He's a bit dorky, easily embarrassed, obsessive and impatient. He's also sensitive, thoughtful and loyal. Above all though, he's just a really nice kid and someone you would want to be friends with.
The other characters in the book are equally well rounded. Q's friends, Radar and Ben each have their own quirks, which make them completely believable. The dynamics and dialogue between the three miss-fit boys is superb, ranging from hysterically funny, cringe-worthy, contemplative and touching. I really liked seeing such close friendship from a male perspective, something I have rarely come across. Although Margo is the main focus of the book, for the majority she is missing and in solving the mystery of her disappearance, and indeed who she actually is, Q embarks on a surprising journey of self-discovery. Margo herself is exactly what Q imagines her to be to begin. On their one night together she's fun, crazy, vivid, passionate and wild but through Q's investigation, as a reader you are taken on the same journey as he, realizing that the way you see and imagine people is rarely who they really are.
Paper Towns is quite simply a wonderful and beautiful Book. It starts with fun filled energy and continues with intrigue and mystery that will keep you turning the pages. I really wanted to know what had happened to Margo, more than I remember wanting to know the ending of a book for a long time. I couldn't predict any of the plot and it was constantly surprising and fresh. John Green's writing ranges from truly funny one-liners to thoughtful and poignant with a cast of characters you will genuinely truly care about; even days after finishing I'm still thinking about them. Highly recommended.
Quentin (Q) has been infatuated with his next-door neighbour, Margo, since they were both 9 years old and were involved in a traumatic experience. But to Q, Margo is completely unobtainable; she's magical, courageous, wild and unique where as he's a bit of a geek, self conscious and timid. I wasn't expecting to like and relate to Q as much as I did, not being a teenage male myself. But I'm sure we've all known someone like Margo, who we see as so perfect but completely out of our league, and idolise so much they become almost godlike in our imaginations. He also has all the qualities required so that anyone, of any age can identify with him, with flaws as human as they come. He's a bit dorky, easily embarrassed, obsessive and impatient. He's also sensitive, thoughtful and loyal. Above all though, he's just a really nice kid and someone you would want to be friends with.
The other characters in the book are equally well rounded. Q's friends, Radar and Ben each have their own quirks, which make them completely believable. The dynamics and dialogue between the three miss-fit boys is superb, ranging from hysterically funny, cringe-worthy, contemplative and touching. I really liked seeing such close friendship from a male perspective, something I have rarely come across. Although Margo is the main focus of the book, for the majority she is missing and in solving the mystery of her disappearance, and indeed who she actually is, Q embarks on a surprising journey of self-discovery. Margo herself is exactly what Q imagines her to be to begin. On their one night together she's fun, crazy, vivid, passionate and wild but through Q's investigation, as a reader you are taken on the same journey as he, realizing that the way you see and imagine people is rarely who they really are.
Paper Towns is quite simply a wonderful and beautiful Book. It starts with fun filled energy and continues with intrigue and mystery that will keep you turning the pages. I really wanted to know what had happened to Margo, more than I remember wanting to know the ending of a book for a long time. I couldn't predict any of the plot and it was constantly surprising and fresh. John Green's writing ranges from truly funny one-liners to thoughtful and poignant with a cast of characters you will genuinely truly care about; even days after finishing I'm still thinking about them. Highly recommended.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I really hate to give the lovely John Green a bad review but I am being completely honest when say that I was horribly disappointed with this book. Subtlety and nuance go out of the window, particularly towards the end. How many times do we have to hear about one Walt Whitman poem? Writers are often inspired by other texts, and channel this inspiration to create complex ideas about characters and life and so on, and these are the underbelly of the text, the IMPLIED narrative. Here, that is abandoned in favour of shoving Whitman down our throats at any opportunity and huge blocks of dialogue from a teenage boy expressing his existential vision. Seriously the bits towards the end were completely ridiculous, like this section:
'We don't suffer from a shortage of metaphors, is what I mean. But you have to be careful what metaphor you choose, because it matters. If you choose the strings, then you're imagining a world in which you can be irreparably broken. If you choose the grass, you're saying we're all infinitely interconnected, that we can use these root systems to not only understand one another but to become one another. The metaphors have implications. Do you know what I mean?'
Um...no I do not know what you mean because I lost concentration when you started this completely irrelevant speech. I'm sure the author has muddled through these ideas of paper people and interconnectedness and becoming one another and how we can be broken inside, but why spell it out in such a tedious fashion through the mouth of a teenage boy? It makes absolutely no sense at all. This book just lost all subtlety for me, and I could not connect with it on any level. I disliked every character, particularly the morbidly unfunny Ben and his adorably grating use of the word 'honeybunny'...just made me cringe with embarrassment every time I read it and I honestly don't believe a person has ever got laid using that word.
I also hated the way John Green seemed t try to project himself into Q in a way that was very unnecessary- listening to the Mountain Goats to establish a good taste in music? Completely irrelevant to the character and sticks out like a sore thumb. The characters are inherently inconsistent- they seem to start out as straight-laced nerdy gamers/ self-proclaimed band geeks who have been persistently bullied by the cool kids and rejected by the pretty girls. Yet by about a quarter of the book in these boys have got these previously unattainable girls for no particular reason (they change in no dramatic way), have seemingly become the most popular kids in school, with people chanting their names at parties and the bullies even coming to their house to apologize to them (I mean...come on...). Is John Green just re-imagining is own high school years and fantasizing about what could have been? I think I just despise novels that seem like self-satisfied odes to the author, creating teenage boys who analyse poetry and unconditionally love girls when really, they got another 10 years before that kicks in.
'We don't suffer from a shortage of metaphors, is what I mean. But you have to be careful what metaphor you choose, because it matters. If you choose the strings, then you're imagining a world in which you can be irreparably broken. If you choose the grass, you're saying we're all infinitely interconnected, that we can use these root systems to not only understand one another but to become one another. The metaphors have implications. Do you know what I mean?'
Um...no I do not know what you mean because I lost concentration when you started this completely irrelevant speech. I'm sure the author has muddled through these ideas of paper people and interconnectedness and becoming one another and how we can be broken inside, but why spell it out in such a tedious fashion through the mouth of a teenage boy? It makes absolutely no sense at all. This book just lost all subtlety for me, and I could not connect with it on any level. I disliked every character, particularly the morbidly unfunny Ben and his adorably grating use of the word 'honeybunny'...just made me cringe with embarrassment every time I read it and I honestly don't believe a person has ever got laid using that word.
I also hated the way John Green seemed t try to project himself into Q in a way that was very unnecessary- listening to the Mountain Goats to establish a good taste in music? Completely irrelevant to the character and sticks out like a sore thumb. The characters are inherently inconsistent- they seem to start out as straight-laced nerdy gamers/ self-proclaimed band geeks who have been persistently bullied by the cool kids and rejected by the pretty girls. Yet by about a quarter of the book in these boys have got these previously unattainable girls for no particular reason (they change in no dramatic way), have seemingly become the most popular kids in school, with people chanting their names at parties and the bullies even coming to their house to apologize to them (I mean...come on...). Is John Green just re-imagining is own high school years and fantasizing about what could have been? I think I just despise novels that seem like self-satisfied odes to the author, creating teenage boys who analyse poetry and unconditionally love girls when really, they got another 10 years before that kicks in.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
An Incredible Read
Having recently been bought a Kindle I was looking at book reviews online and discovered Paper Towns - from the write up given I thought I would make this one of my first Kindle... Read more
Published 24 days ago by shibby1989
ASDFGHJKL A BEAUTIFUL NOVEL.
After purchasing John Green's newest book - The Fault in Our Stars - I was eager to read anything else he had written. Read more
Published 2 months ago by TheMisfitsandDreamers
Q & Margo
This is possibly one of the best books ever. There is a little bit of Q and Margo in all of us.
Published 4 months ago by Samantha Copp
Beautiful.
So I got this book because I liked another of his books, "Looking For Alaska". I have to say, the back of the book uninterested me a little, but when I got round to reading it, I... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Macauley
Extraordinary
This book is just immense, the journey that happens is amazing, great book and great author John Green is such a fantastic author love every book of his, I could read them all... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Sal1
Enjoyable for all ages
Despite the books being aimed at 'young adults' I do believe that anyone could enjoy this book. One of John Green's greatest talents - in my humble opinion - is taking existential... Read more
Published 5 months ago by T. Mansfield
LOVED THIS BOOK
Loved this book so much! It was such an interesting story, and the characters were good. Definitley recommend this book! Finished it in 4 days!! Read more
Published 5 months ago by Jade
Paper Towns by John Green
This book was absolutely amazing. It was full of humour and it truly was told from the perspective of a teenager, in the sense that it was really relatable. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Nerdfighter
A great read
This is another great book from the author of the excellent Looking for Alaska.
Quentin Jacobsen has always loved his neighbour Margo Roth Speigelman. Read more
Quentin Jacobsen has always loved his neighbour Margo Roth Speigelman. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Cathy Hill
Utterly brilliant in every way!
John Green is just one of those authors you'll remember. All of his books are written so well, they'll have you laughing out loud and thinking really deeply about yourself. Read more
Published 8 months ago by A Patterson
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