Paper Towns

(Source)

Oh, John Green, you are a fantastic author.

As I frequent the social media site known as Tumblr way too frequently for my own good, I happened to discover an entity known as John Green. This John Green was one half of a popular Youtube channel, was the owner of a snarky and hilarious Tumblr, and also wrote some book called "The Fault in Our Stars" that apparently was really good and everyone cried really hard and somehow it was associated with the word "okay". Also, he owned a small army of teenagers and young adults known as Nerdfighters, and they often proclaimed "DFTBA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", which, after extensive googling, I discovered meant "don't forget to be awesome".

Long story short, I decided to read "The Fault in our Stars." I didn't cry. It was an okay book. I enjoyed it quite a lot.

And so my obsession with reading John Green books was born. The man has a way with words, people.

"Paper Towns" is by far my favorite John Green book (and I've read all but one). It's also one of my favorite books, period. I really wish I had read this book a few years ago. It was fantastic as well as life-changing. Seriously. It's not often you find yourself re-thinking the way you think about people based on a book.

Quentin has had a crush on his next door neighbor, the elusive and mysterious Margo Roth Spiegelman, for pretty much his entire life. His senior year of high school, Margo takes him on a wild mission and then disappears the next day, leaving a small string of clues for Q to decipher. As Q tries to find where she ran away to, he discovers that he didn't know Margo as well as he thought, and has to rethink the way he views Margo, and the way he views the human race in general.

"Paper Towns" is beautifully written (like I said, the man has a way with words), quirky, hilarious (I was literally laughing out loud), serious, and thought-provoking. It perfect portrays life at the end of high school. Q's experiences as he nears graduation and college almost perfectly mirror mine. Q himself I can relate to a lot, as his high school adventures are things that I do/did/would have liked to do. Margo Roth Spiegelman herself, although a mystery, makes perfect sense. I'm not really sure how else to explain her, but if you read the book, it will all become clear.

"Paper Towns" is sweet, original, entertaining, and funny. It invites you to take a second look at the people in your life by asking just how much we think we know, and how much we actually know about our friends. It investigates the concept of friendship and will remind you of the reasons you bother to befriend people in the first place. I highly recommend this book, and I will definitely read this again in the future.

(Note: This book is definitely for older teenagers. The characters in the books are seniors in high school and they act like it.)