Tolog Review: Paper Towns

Paper Towns
by John Green
reviewed by Alexandra Artura

Self-discovery is one of the biggest journeys we face as people. Our life experiences, especially during our formative years, shape who we turn into as individuals allowing us to grow and find out more things about ourselves every day. And then sometimes, we start thinking that we have others all figured out when we haven’t even figured ourselves out yet.
John Green explores the concept of discovering who we truly are through the relationship between Quentin Jacobsen and Margo Roth Spiegelman in Paper Towns. Quentin and Margo have known each other since they were young children, and he has admired her for as long as he can remember. As kids, they were the best of friends and did everything together. When they got older and moved on to high school, Quentin and Margo grew apart until one night when everything changed.

It was a few weeks before senior graduation when Margo knocked on Quentin’s window and climbed inside his room. Margo had devised a plan to get back at everyone who had ever wronged her through a series of pranks that would require Quentin’s help. Quentin, willing to do anything to help Margo, agreed and they embarked on a night full of sneaking into people’s houses, breaking and entering Sea World and various other pranks involving smelly fish and spray paint. 

Quentin was sure that from this night on, he and Margo would remain good friends, that is, until he heard that Margo went missing. Quentin, convinced that Margo had left a trail of clues for him, dropped everything else going on in his life, and made it his mission to find Margo and bring her home. What he didn’t realize was that Margo was far more complex than he thought she was. Quentin thought that by becoming Margo, it would lead him to her, but he discovered that you could never truly become another person. There was a totally different Margo on the inside than what everybody thought she was like on the outside. Maybe Margo didn’t want to be found in the first place.

By dedicating the next few weeks to finding Margo, Quentin dug deeper into what she was really like and learned a lot more about himself in the process. Because I enjoy almost all of John Green’s books, I decided to start reading this one and it immediately became one of my favorites. Paper Towns ended up being more unpredictable than many other John Green novels and had more of a multifaceted plot. I was drawn into the story by the depth and intricacies of each character in this book, and I’m sure you will be too if you should decide to read it for yourself!