Paper Towns (John Green) - Book Review
RECENZIE SCRISĂ DE RĂZVAN ANTON. A apărut inițial pe Teoriile unui blogger.
I first 'met' John Green when reading The Fault in our Stars. The experience was so liberating and unique, that it set the bar high for any future readings of John Green I would ever do.
The feelings I got while reading Paper Towns were mixed. It's about kids playing pranks on their high-school enemies. At least in the beginning. And at surface structure. So it actually felt like watching Ashton Kutcher's Punk'd.
We have two teenagers, Margo Roth Spiegelman and Quentin Jacobsen. The boy is secretly admiring the girl (nothing out of the ordinary up to now). Then, one night, Margo takes Quentin on a trip where he would help her play pranks on her ex-boyfriend and a few other fellows.
After the night is over the girl suspiciously disappears, leaving clues for Q to follow. Now everything turns into a Sherlock Holmes like detective story, although Arthur Conan Doyle is never explicitly mentioned in the novel. So everything turns into a hunting for clues sort of game. The thing that keeps you reading is the mystery behind it all.
The 'heart of the plot' is a childhood scene when Margo and Quentin find a neighbour who had committed suicide in the park. The more you keep reading, the more the action unveils. And somehow, in the back of your mind, you feel that this rebellious teenager, Margo, has done the same. And the thing is that, you, as a reader, wish exactly the same thing as Quentin, the character. You don't want Margo to be dead.
John Green is special for a number of reasons which become obvious in the in-depth structure of the novel.
He manages to keep mystery going and have his characters think and react in a responsible way, while also acting as immature teenagers who skip their graduation prom, miss their graduation day, go on an endless road-trip to the middle of nowhere and play metaphysical I spy while illegally speed-driving.
John Green is a literature teacher and this becomes obvious in the course of the novel. If you have not read Walt Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass' and you need it for an exam, read Paper Towns attentively and it might just be enough. My favourite line in the novel (well, yes, it turns out that you can have one favourite line in a 300-page long novel) is also inspired from literature, when Margo quotes Emily Dickinson saying 'forever is made of nows'.
He can convey the uncertainties of teenage life using a list of metaphors. 'Paper towns' is a metaphor for fake values, fake people, fake daily realities. The leaves of grass are a metaphor for all people in general and the broken strings stand for broken souls.
Margo is finally found. She is not dead. But is she THE Margo that Quentin and his friends (Ben, Radar and Lacey) had been looking for? Why would she run away just three weeks before graduation. Where did she go and what did she do? How did three people preoccupied with studying, computing, playing video games and shopping manage to go through the maze that Margo had left for them? Had she intended Quentin to find her?
And most importantly... is there any place for love in these Paper Towns?
We have two teenagers, Margo Roth Spiegelman and Quentin Jacobsen. The boy is secretly admiring the girl (nothing out of the ordinary up to now). Then, one night, Margo takes Quentin on a trip where he would help her play pranks on her ex-boyfriend and a few other fellows.
After the night is over the girl suspiciously disappears, leaving clues for Q to follow. Now everything turns into a Sherlock Holmes like detective story, although Arthur Conan Doyle is never explicitly mentioned in the novel. So everything turns into a hunting for clues sort of game. The thing that keeps you reading is the mystery behind it all.
The 'heart of the plot' is a childhood scene when Margo and Quentin find a neighbour who had committed suicide in the park. The more you keep reading, the more the action unveils. And somehow, in the back of your mind, you feel that this rebellious teenager, Margo, has done the same. And the thing is that, you, as a reader, wish exactly the same thing as Quentin, the character. You don't want Margo to be dead.
John Green is special for a number of reasons which become obvious in the in-depth structure of the novel.
He manages to keep mystery going and have his characters think and react in a responsible way, while also acting as immature teenagers who skip their graduation prom, miss their graduation day, go on an endless road-trip to the middle of nowhere and play metaphysical I spy while illegally speed-driving.
John Green is a literature teacher and this becomes obvious in the course of the novel. If you have not read Walt Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass' and you need it for an exam, read Paper Towns attentively and it might just be enough. My favourite line in the novel (well, yes, it turns out that you can have one favourite line in a 300-page long novel) is also inspired from literature, when Margo quotes Emily Dickinson saying 'forever is made of nows'.
He can convey the uncertainties of teenage life using a list of metaphors. 'Paper towns' is a metaphor for fake values, fake people, fake daily realities. The leaves of grass are a metaphor for all people in general and the broken strings stand for broken souls.
Margo is finally found. She is not dead. But is she THE Margo that Quentin and his friends (Ben, Radar and Lacey) had been looking for? Why would she run away just three weeks before graduation. Where did she go and what did she do? How did three people preoccupied with studying, computing, playing video games and shopping manage to go through the maze that Margo had left for them? Had she intended Quentin to find her?
And most importantly... is there any place for love in these Paper Towns?