So I have two updates for you guys. The first one is that I’m
on vacation from school for a week, and so that I don’t spend the whole time
watching reruns of Friends and old vlogbrothers videos, I’m going to update
ramblingsofacinephile every day. And each posting will be a full legitimate
post, not the random plugs for halfgiant that I’ve been giving you. So I’d
much appreciate it if you give me suggestions for posts in the comments,
because coming up with a new idea every day is hard. The second update is that
despite having already started my journey through Paper Towns as a
review series, I have to cut it short because I wound up reading the rest of
the book in one sitting. As a result I’m just going to write a full review of
the book as my first post of the week. Here is the review:
The Summary:
Paper Towns is a novel written by John Green in three
parts and a prologue. The prologue has been extensively covered here, so
I won’t go into it too much in this review. The first part however is mainly
concerned with a brief nocturnal adventure with our protagonist Quentin
Jacobsen, also referred to as Q, and his neighbor Margo Roth Spiegelman. Margo
shows up in Q’s bedroom one night and whisks him away to help her get revenge
against her cheating boyfriend and Margo’s friends who didn’t enlighten her as
to her boyfriend’s licentious actions. This adventure is a fun one that draws
the reader into the lives of these characters and allows us to see Q’s feelings
for Margo develop. And yet, just as we become intrigued with discovering who
Margo has grown up to be, the night is over and Margo leaves town, supposedly
never to be seen again. Thus concludes the first part of the book.
The second part is concerned mostly with Q’s attempts to find
Margo based on a string of loosely connected clues Margo leaves behind for Q to
investigate. This part of the book is mostly comprised of Q’s stream of consciousness
ponderings, which provide insight into the way Q sees the world. Furthermore,
the segment consists of lots of setting development, introducing us to Q’s parents
and showing us the everyday facets of Q’s life. The primary effect of this
setting development is that we the readers get to see what it is that shapes Q
as a human being: the way he sees the world, how he spends his free time, and
what he truly values (which oftentimes is just as selfish as you’d expect from
a teenager: Q often focuses on things that satisfy his own desires far more
than they do his friends’ and hopes to see one of his classmates take off her
clothes). After Q has thoroughly investigated Margo’s clues, and thus the
little bit of her soul Margo allows Q to see, the second segment concludes with
Q discovering where Margo has escaped to and undergoing his own adventure to
find her.
To avoid spoilers I will not go into details on the third
segment of the book. I will just inform you that it is highly entertaining and
I read it straight through from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m.
The Spoiler Free Assessment:
Now I was already familiar with John Green before reading
this book via his vlogbrothers youtube channel, which did give me a level of
referential enjoyment you can only get by having watched John Green talk for
several hours. However, I had no clue what to expect upon reading this book, as
I had never seen any of Green’s writing beforehand. That being said I was
extensively surprised at how well written Paper Towns is. It being a
young adult novel, I assumed it would be moderately well written, as it had won
a couple awards, but probably nothing particularly special. But no, Green
manages to consistently impress with his snappy and witty dialogue as well as
his use of internal monologue, on which the novel (particularly the second section)
relies heavily. These two things work together seemingly effortlessly to create
vastly complex characters and relationships between those characters. Q and his
friends feel as if they have been friends for years and Q’s relationship with
Margo seems as if the two are rekindling an old companionship. Furthermore,
Green paints an environment that matches seamlessly with the characters living
in it. Q and his parents’ relationship helps to clarify why Q is the way he is;
the paper quality of Orlando helps to explain Margo’s desperation to leave. Additionally,
all the characters serve some purpose in the novel. No one is useless. Every
character works together to reveal what I believe John Green is trying to say
with this novel. And that is that people are complex. And limiting people to
single facets of understanding endangers that person’s understanding of himself
or herself and works against allowing people to be who they truly are. Q’s
constant inner monologue wondering why Margo is the way she is paints her to be
this supernatural girl beyond human understanding in Q’s mind, when she is in
fact a complex person with feelings and fears and fervor just like Q. Every
aspect of the book works to reveal that every character, even basic archetypes
like ‘school bully’ and ‘popular hot girl’ are far more than the simplistic
shadows they are often portrayed as. A novel in which all the parts work
together so seamlessly to convey a message as powerfully as Paper Towns
does is, in my opinion, the very definition of an excellent novel.
Five stars out of Five
Things to Think About While Reading:
Rather than end with a spoiler-filled nitty gritty section
like I did with my Hunger Games review, I’m going to tie this novel to
two other pieces I couldn’t help but think about while reading Paper Towns.
The first is The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, which was fresh
in my mind from having to read it for an English class. I couldn’t help but be
constantly reminded of Basil’s understanding of Dorian limiting who Dorian
could be by Q’s limited understanding of Margo. In both cases, that limited
understanding results in creation of an impossibly perfect ideal that leaves no
room for human flaw, effectively dehumanizing the character. And while I
probably can’t go into the comparison too much without writing a whole essay,
it is definitely an interesting comparison to think about while reading this
novel (which I wholeheartedly recommend you do). The other thing Green’s novel
reminded me of, particularly his exploration of the idea that certain people
bring out aspects of other people that wouldn’t otherwise be there, thus
increasing the complexity of said person, is a quote from the book The
Four Loves by C.S. Lewis that basically states that a person brings out
parts of another person’s personality that would not otherwise exist,
suggesting that the specific complexities of human beings is highly dependent
on the way they interact with each other. That was interesting to think about
in conjunction to Green’s book because it deepened the question, “what then
happens when instead of bringing out more complexity we attempt to simplify?”
My Favorite Quote:
“I understand now that I can’t be her and she can’t be me.
Maybe Whitman had a gift I don’t have. But as for me: I must ask the wounded
man where he is hurt, because I cannot become the wounded man. The only wounded
man I can be is me.” –John Green pg 298 of Paper Towns
