Book Reviews

Paper Towns- John Green

For this review, I'm mostly going to be answering discussion questions from the back of the book and from other sources online. Feel free to ask questions/answer questions/have a discussion in the comments!

When Margo and Quentin are nine, they make a horrible discovery, and respond in very different ways. Quentin says, "As I took two steps back, Margo took two equally small and quiet steps forward." (p. 5). Do these descriptions still apply to the characters when they reach high school? When the story ends? What changes?

My answer to this is that yes, it does describe them when they reach high school. Margo is fabled for her crazy adventures and Quentin likes his routines, his normality. That is pretty blatantly clear. It's also clear that at the beginning of the search for Margo, Q is out of his comfort zone and is borrowing Margo's eyes, her view of the world. As the search continues, however, he adopts these world views himself and expands his comfort zone. By the end of the book, he is very different from the nine year old boy who cowered in front of the corpse.

2. Describe Q's best friends. Where do they fit into the caste system of Winter Park High? If you had to choose one of these characters as your best friend, who would you pick? Why?

Q's friends are very... interesting. You have Ben, who is affection-driven. He loves talking about girls and flirting. I think it was good for Q to be friends with Ben, who dragged Q to social events and made sure he was involved. Ben sort of acts like a player, but once he finds Lacey, he's a very loyal and caring boyfriend. On the flip side, Ben can sometimes be unpredictable. Not in the way Margo is unpredictable, but he does like to make things up as he goes. Which I think is a very teenaged thing to do. Above, I talked about how Q likes his routine. Ben is the type to leave his schedule open and find different social interactions as they arrive. Radar is a very different kind of friend. He is the kind of friend who will always be there for you and is willing to do what you are comfortable with. His character is very different from Q's and Ben's. He's the one in the group who has a girlfriend but he's also the one who spends a lot of his time online. All three of them like video games but Radar has his obsession with editing and maintaining pages on Omnictionary. I'm not entirely sure which I'd rather have as a friend as they both have good qualities and downfalls, as all humans do. I'd like to have Radar's dependability but, with him always catering to your comfort zone, I feel like you wouldn't really be able to progress as a person and expand that comfort zone. On the flip side, Ben's crazy, sporadic mindset would probably drive me crazy sometimes and would make me experience things I didn't think I'd enjoy or gain experiences I wouldn't have gained otherwise. I suppose this is why we're meant to have more than one friend. Every person has something different to offer and you really need to get a good mix in a group and everyone will benefit.

3. How does Q struggle at times with his friendship with Ben? How does Q learn to accept Ben for who he is? How does this relate to Q's changing understanding of Margo?

Q, at the beginning, struggles with Ben's reasoning. As I mentioned previously, Ben has a very crazy and sporadic mindset and likes to act like a ladies man. Which is the opposite of Q, who has his comfort zone and routine and doesn't like them to be messed with. Over the course of the book, Q learns to accept Ben with Radar's help. I think Radar could that Q needed help seeing others complexly and there were a few scenes where he talked to Q specifically about Ben and helped him realize that Ben's actions and thought processes are not bad or weird, just different. I think once he was able to see Ben as a person with valid thoughts and actions, he was able to start seeing the world more complexly (Margo also helped with that) and that led to him being able to see Margo as a real, complex person.

4. Why do you think Margo chooses Q as her accomplice on her campaign of revenge?

Convenience and past ties. He lives right next to her and has access to a car, which is pretty dang convenient for her. I think it also helped that they played together as children and they had the experience with the dead man in the park. She talks about her old fantasies of him and I think a very small part of her was still holding on to those old fantasies, though she knew they were not true. I also think that she knew he liked her (have you seen a high school boy with a crush? It's pretty dang obvious) and knew that she could get him to comply because of the way he saw her.

5. Do you think Margo wants to be found? Do you think she wants to be found by Q?

No. I think she wanted something exciting to do, something to go out with a bang. She left those same quality clues every time she left. Just because Q happened to be the one she chose for her campaign of revenge doesn't make this time any different. I think that's something he projected onto the situation. He has been influenced (as we all have been) by the media, constantly being shown the scenarios with the knight in shining armor rescuing the damsel in distress. He convinced himself that clearly, she was in distress and wanted him to save her when really, she just wanted to get out. She is so surprised when she actually is found in Agloe because this is the first time anyone has actually tracked her down by following her clues and she never expected that to happen. She never thought that anyone would actually be able to find her unless she wants to be found and it startles her to anger. She gets mad at him for seeing her as a damsel in distress for seeing her objectively and not complexly. It's only after she calms down that Q and Margo are able to see each other for who they really are. Margo is not some great thing in need of saving, she is a girl who wants to run. Q is not someone to be mad at, but someone who cared about her well being (remember, he thought she was going to die) enough to track her down which, again, no one has done before.

6. Q comes to the conclusion "Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a find and precious thing. She was a girl." (pg. 199). Discuss.

I loved this moment. It was the moment that the manic pixie dream girl vision was shattered and he was able to see Margo complexly for who she really is, a person who has great things but also has flaws. Before this moment, he really did view her as the manic pixie dream girl and he thought that they had to be together because they were perfect for each other and all of these mindsets put out by the media. But those mindsets are not necessarily healthy ones. It's not good to view others in this way. It's important that we all see each other's flaws and recognise that we are all humans. I think it's also very important that we search out our own flaws and do what we can to improve ourselves. This moment is when Q realizes that one of his flaws was that he took this girl he has a crush on and he didn't see her for who she really was. He projected what he wanted to see onto her and this is the moment where he knows he was wrong to do that and he is able to change his views.

7. Paper Towns has two different covers. What does this symbolize to you? What does each version say about Margo? Do you think either one is 'correct'?

There are actually more than two covers for paper towns now but the question is talking about the two original covers. One has a girl (presumably Margo) smiling with a yellow background. The other has the same girl with a serious expression and a light blue filter on the cover. This one is also distressed, a technique used by artists to make something look old or slightly burnt on the edges. I think the symbolic meanings behind these covers is very interesting. In the first, it shows the Margo that everyone sees, especially Q. It shows a happy, healthy girl who's kind of just living life like everyone else. The second shows more the true Margo, the one underneath that Q discovers at the end of the book. It shows a girl who is wanting to get out who is done being held in one place and is ready to escape. The first is how Q views Margo and the second is how Margo views Margo. That being said, I don't think either of them are necessarily correct. I think it's a really cool idea and one that worked exceptionally well with Paper Towns.

All in all, I loved this book. I liked that it showed the problems with the 'manic pixie dream girl' trope often used in books, especially young adult fiction. It teaches that we need to see others complexly for who they really are, faults and all. It showed that most people really are not who they seem to be. Radar is not just an internet-addicted teenager, he's a very loyal, dependable friend and boyfriend. Lacey is not just a shallow, happy-go-lucky cheerleader. She really felt bad when Margo left and was worried about her well being. Ben is not just a player with a spontaneous mindset, he's a good friend who will help you learn and grow, even if those lessons include trashy parties and beer swords. Margo is not the most perfect girl in the world and meant for Q. She is a person who has her own desires and motives. I like that this book not only teaches Q to view others, and the world, complexly, but also teaches that same lesson to it's readers.

If you want to go to the blogpost and comment/discuss, the link is http://keverbloom.edublogs.org/2016/07/05/paper-towns-john-green/ or if you'd rather do that here, that works as well.