Idgiepug’s #CBR4 Review #50: Paper Towns by John Green
John Green’s Paper Towns is about a boy’s quest to find his missing neighbor, the lovely Margo. Quentin has had a crush on Margo for most of their lives, and when she disappears, he can’t seem to let her go. His quest to find her takes him through nearby “paper towns,” housing divisions which were plotted but never fully developed. Living in Florida, Quentin has quite a few paper towns to choose from. Like all of Green’s novels, this one was well-written and interesting, but I found myself a bit frustrated by the characters.
Margo was probably the most frustrating. She’s an angsty little thing who’s run off several times before, which explains why Quentin is the only one who seems really concerned about her disappearance. He manages to get his best friends involved, but he’s really the driving force behind the search. Really, she seems a bit selfish and manipulative, and I was torn between feeling sorry for Quentin and being upset with him for his obsession with her. I ended up liking his friends much better than Quentin himself, especially Radar, whose parents own the world’s largest collection of black Santas. The relationship between Quentin, Radar, and Ben was, for me, the highlight of the novel. They seemed like real teenaged boys, and their sarcastic affection for each other was sweet.
There were a lot of fun moments in the novel, and, as I said, it was very well written. I just wish I’d liked the characters more, but I guess their flaws made them seem more real.
