Paper Towns

Paper Towns

by John Green
4/5 stars
Reviewer: Marina

Margo Roth Spiegelman is almost a legend in her high school.  She is popular, pretty, wacky, and comes up with bizarre and extravagant pranks.  One of her quirks is her habit of running away from home and leaving unspecific clues to her whereabouts (for example MISP in her alphabet soup when she ran away to Mississippi).  After Margo surprises Quentin with a night of pranks during their final month of high school Margo disappears yet again and Quentin feels it is his duty to find her.  The novel follows Quentin and his friends on their journey to find Margo and the completion of their final days of school.  This is not a mystery that you will be able to figure out before the characters, instead you piece together clues with Quentin and his friends.  There is also much more to the story than a simple mystery.  Within the main body of the book, the story is mostly serious and heavily entrenched in Margo’s mystery.  The first 80 pages and the last 60 pages, however, have a far different and more enjoyable feel.  Both of these sections are laugh out loud funny (even with the serious questions being raised) and have a fast paced roller coaster feel to the plot.  Perhaps the book would have been better with more of this feel woven throughout, but it would definitely not have been as successful without it.  When all is said and done, the book is an enjoyable read and a fascinating mystery.