Paper Towns Novel

Paper Towns, what an incredible read. John Green explores many aspects of life such as friendship,love and determination. He is smart with his writing as he keeps the audience well engaged by creating a mystery around Margo, one of the main characters. The book is based on her disappearance however before she runs away she is created as an ambiguous character through her adventures that Q talks about and has been on. From the start it is clear that she is a risk taker and wants to live her life to the full however there is something about her that as a reader it is hard to put your finger on.

Through out the novel , Q talks about his version of Margo , the Margo that he has known and loved since he was a child yet as he begins looking through the clues to find her he soon learns that there is more to Margo. In chapter 15 Q talks about how Margo felt empty when she was not being Margo as well as talking about her being a normal person that she was not seen as. To me this implies that Margo was a girl who hid her true self and created a persona of herself that she wanted others to believe and see. Her talk about being a paper girl is a reference to this as she describes herself as flimsy-foldable implying that she can be folded into different versions just like paper can be folded into different shapes. Sometimes we as people also do this. We hide behind anything we can or we try to be someone we are not. John Green was smart in this way as this allows us as readers to feel connected to Margo even though at times Q can feel so distant from her.

Speaking of Q he also shows some traits that we has humans automatically tend to have. When Margo disappears and he finds the first clue he jumps to the worst conclusion possible that Margo is dead. As humans we all do this. We jump to the worst scenario possible and automatically think the worst. This is just how the human mind works and as we are reading we are agreeing with Q and feeling empathy for him as we also think she is dead. However when they do find her and she is alive it is incredible and we are so happy for Q and so hopeful that Margo and him will go home together and happy ever after but that is not the case. I am using the word "we" as when reading the book we can feel so connected and almost apart of the journey. The ending is a sad one I must say as it really is not the happy ever after we hoped for. When Q finds Margo they both learn that they are not the same and they want different things in life. The image and expectations they had of each other were not real. Unfortunately they decide to go to different places. Again we as people can do this we have such high expectations to the point we end up being disappointed that our expectations were not met.

As always I am going to end this post with one of my favorite quotes from the novel "she was not an adventure. She was not a fine precious thing. She was a girl"