Why I Liked Paper Towns

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The book I picked out is ‘Paper Towns’, written by John Green, published by Dutton back on October 16, 2008. The physical setting takes place in Orlando, Florida. To be more specific the main setting mentioned in the story is Jefferson park, high school, and their homes.

Q (the main character) is in love with his childhood friend/ next-door neighbor, Margo Roth Spiegelman. The story begins 9 years ago when Q and Margo are riding their bikes to the park and encounter a dead man.

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Flash-forward to the present, they're in high school living their everyday lives, but, Margo had become very popular while Q, not so much. Their friendship grew apart over the years. Just a few weeks from graduation, Margo shows up at his window which was pretty random. She then asks him to be her chauffeur for reasons she couldn't explain to him. Q later finds out that he was helping with Margo’s 11-part plan to get revenge on her friends who have wronged her.

Their night continues with them braking into Sea World. Part two of the book continues with an outline of the characters in the last few weeks of high school. After Margo and Q’s adventure, margo disappears but has set clues for Q to put these clues together to figure out where she has gone. The first clue, on which Q figures out that it’s from a book called: Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, in which she has highlighted certain pages for more clues.

Q can figure this out alone so he gathers his two best friends, Ben and Radar, to help him find Margo, after a bit Margo’s friend Lacey joins to help. Through her unclear/ vague clues, it then leads them to an old abandoned minimall, that she had set up a little camp-out that contained more clues. After the long search for Margo, Q has no luck finding her, and continues to have a deep concern for looking for her, and isn’t focused on his friends at all. On prom night Q, who doesn't have an interest in going to prom, plans to spend the night at the abandoned minimall. He continues his search on the morning of graduation and discovers that Margo had left a clue that led Q, Radar, Ben and Lacey to skip graduation to get to where they needed to go to get Margo. Part three is about their wonderful, yet tragic journey from Florida to New York. as they’re on the road, they get into a minor accident, but it ends up with all four of them bonding. When they end up in New York they are face to face with Margo who seems to be acting quite strange.

The major theme of the story is, people change all the time and you can’t stay stuck on who they used to be. For example, “It is saying these things that keeps us from falling apart. And maybe by imagining these futures, we can make them real, and maybe not, but either way, we must imagine them. The light rushes out and floods in” (Green 304).

Margo Roth Spiegelman has many strengths but yet many weaknesses, and an example of her strengths and how she shows it is, she is not afraid of anything, she’s very smart, sneaky, and brave. She shows it by running away and setting up clever clues. Her weaknesses are, she has family issues, she seeks revenge, and is angry towards her friends and boyfriend for betraying her. She shows this by running away and plotting revenge on her friends.

The major conflict is Margo. She runs away and sets clues that are pretty vague and hard to follow. The conflict is resolved for the reason that Margo wasn’t expecting them to find her, and when they do Q tries to talk to her alone, and as they talk they figure out the love that they have for each other and for the first and last time they kiss. After the kiss, she is no longer the “paper girl” she once was.

I think the book was very influential because the author puts a lot of thought and effort into the meaning of the book, which is “we oftentimes overestimate people, especially the ones we like or love. It even sometimes leads to obsession and forgoing of one’s selves. We tend to want something so much that we exaggerate the best about it. For me, it would be money. It’s like I want it so much and feel like it would make me the happiest in the world but when I do have more than what I need, it loses its value” (Emmanuelle V. Payumo). His writing also is very heart touching and dramatic, in addition to his writing, it feels as if you’re in the story.

The author, John Green, uses literary devices such as an analogy such as, “These kids, they are like tied down helium balloons” (Green 104). He also uses an oxymoron, “...cold comfort” Green page 247. Green also uses foreshadowing when Margo refers to Orlando as a “paper town” long before the concept of an actual paper town is introduced -(page 57).