Review: Paper Towns

This is one of the books from my first library haul of the year (I'm a little behind getting the reviews up).

Basically, Quentin Jacobsen (Q for short) has been in love with his neighbor Margo for a long time. Having grown up together, the two have drifted apart somewhere along the way, until now in their senior year, graduation in sight, they don't even speak that much, and their social circles are vastly different.

All the more surprising for Q when Margo comes banging on his window in the middle of the night, and drags him along as her getaway driver in a series of escapades. Although he spends half the night wondering if they really should be doing all these things, Q is starting to hope for something again between him and Margo, at the very least friendship...

When she disappears the next day.

Her parents, used to her constant running away and faced with the fact that she is eighteen and a legal adult, throw their hands up and are done with her. But Q begins the search for her, relentlessly trying to piece together the trail of vague clues she's left, trying to figure out what happened to his friend, and why she left.

Although this book wasn't quite what I expected, it was a rather good story. Some of the jokes were too crude for my taste, and there was quite a bit of swearing in the book, but the story itself was rather interesting.

Some of the friendship dynamics in the book didn't really work for me. I kept asking myself, "Why is this girl friends with her after she did that?" and similar questions. After some of the things which some of the characters did, I don't think it was very realistic that the people they hurt would remain good friends with them.

Although I was a little disappointed with how John Green ended the book, I still really enjoyed it. Q's search to find his friend took him on another journey to find himself that I could really relate to. All in all, it was a really good coming of age tale, and one I recommend if you like those kinds of books.

If you prefer just to get your own copy, instead of borrowing from the library, you can get Paper Towns* on Amazon in print, audiobook, or Kindle format.


 *This is an associate link, meaning if you purchase through it I get a referral fee but it costs the same as if you had just gone and ordered it through Amazon.