Title: Paper Towns
Author: John Green
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 4.5/5
Summary: High school senior Quentin can’t believe his luck when his crush Margo chooses him as her partner in crime in an elaborate all-nighter around town. But then she disappears, and he doesn’t know whether she’s just being Margo or if something bad actually happened.

Review: From the first page:

Most of my friends were in the band, and most of my free time during school was spent within twenty feet of the band room. But I was not in the band, because I suffer from the kind of tone deafness that is generally associated with actual deafness.

That totally cracked me up, but maybe I just have an odd sense of humor. Here’s another one you can try on for size. Quentin is trying to convince himself to stay somewhere a little, um, rustic:

I resolved right then to stay until morning. If Margo had slept here, I could, too. And thus commenced a brief conversation with myself.
Me: But the rats.
Me: Yeah, but they seem to stay in the ceiling.
Me: But the lizards.
Me: Oh, come on. You used to pull their tails off when you were little. You’re not scared of lizards.
Me: But the rats.
Me: Rats can’t really hurt you anyway. They’re more scared of you than you are of them.
Me: Okay, but what about the rats?
Me: Shut up.

But this book is more than funny. I loved exploring what happens when you put someone on a pedestal. I loved the adventure of the road trip. I loved learning about paper towns.

The only thing I didn’t love about this book—and it’s just the eensiest teensiest thing—is some of the dialogue at the end of the book revealing what happened to Margo. The dialogue felt a little too speech-y to me, but I also don’t know how that could be avoided given what we had to learn about at that stage of the story.

I look forward to reading more from this author. Plus, he’s on LibraryThing, which makes him even cooler in my book and therefore more likely to move up in my to-read list.

Borrow: Your local library | Swap
Buy: Your local bookstore | Powell’s | Amazon

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