This should be read by all - all of us, all of YOU! There are so many facets that John Green has put into his award-winning novel, Paper Towns, that it goes well beyond a mystery - its identified genre. First and foremost, this book is about friendship. Not just the "hi, how are ya" friends that you pass in the hall. True friends that never give up on each other. Friends that will go to the ends of the earth with/for you. Reading Paper Towns draws the reader into the mundane, the exciting, and the scary of that kind of friendship.
Quentin and Margo are neighbors, have been since they were toddlers. Their childhood friendship drifts apart as they've grown up until one night, just before their high school graduation, Margo enlists Q's help to pull some midnight pranks. The next day - she's disappeared! Not the first time she's run away, but now she is 18 so no longer the minor that her parents can compel home. Even the police take a hands-off approach to looking for her. Not Q! He finds clues among her belongings and most importantly within the notes she's made in her copy of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.
It's a mystery because Q and friends now must try to find Margo. It's also a love story between friends and between Q and Margo. As you read you'll want Q to find her but you may or may not want Margo to love Q. That's the final question - Will they ever be able to resume their childhood friendship that was lost so many years ago as they grew up? How have they changed? Why did Margo leave town just before graduation? Do they really know each other at all? When you finish reading Paper Towns, go ahead - try to find Agloe, NY on Google maps. :-) That's what I did too!
Reviewed by Mrs. Boehm
