Every now and then, though, I'll get a book in my head and it will niggle at me until I've read it and loved it.
Papertowns is the perfect and most recent example of this. [Warning: I am going to gush about this book...I effing love it. I'm also relying on some pretty rusty A-level English critical-viewing skills...beware, this will be rambly!]
The third award-winning book from Nerdfighter-leader and personal (part one of two) hero John Green, Paper Towns is like a book written by your best friend in the entire world - it reads like a nostalgic session with your platonic soulmate, reminiscing about old times spent worrying about things which, at the time, consumed your entire attention and energy. On top of that, you read it feeling like you've lived each rebellious moment, each witty comeback and every hilariously rude remark a thousand times over. I caught myself quite a few times smiling like a person would smile when their best friend has had their first book published - I felt like John Green was my age, in my group of friends. He'd succeeded in doing what many amazing authors had failed to do - relate to its target audience on a level that treats them like the intelligent human beings that so many of them are.
Quentin Jacobsen is neither geek nor jock (Green wisely sidesteps that over-used trick of slotting fictional teens into labelled pigeon-holes) but a comfortable in-betweener in love with the magically mysterious Margo Roth Spiegelman, who (after a night of ninja-themed anarchy with the otherwise straight-laced Quentin) disappears one day, leaving a paper trail for the one person she seems trust. But her clues are cryptic - highlighted lines in a poetry book, tiny notes folded and inside the door frame; everyone who was once close to her start to realise that they truely never knew Margo and time seems to be running out to find her alive.
Q - as he's known - is instantly recognisable as that one friend you always had over for movie/game night and liked a great deal. You want him to succeed and be happy...actually, you wish this for everyone in the book, when it comes down to it. Margo, in the beginning at least, is portrayed as everyone else in the book sees her - quirky, hilarious, beautiful and Queen Bee of the high school. But as Q tries desperately to find her, Margo is slowly revealed as a record-collecting, breaking-and-entering, journal-writing, spray-painting, unstable girl, simply troubled yet infinitely confusing and confused all at once. She's like all of us, really - a layer of normality, with which we fit comfortably into our groups of friends and perceived enemies, glossing over the messier, sometimes sadder inner person that we all are when we're alone.
On the face of it, Paper Towns can be cast off as just another well-written, enjoyable and relatable "coming-of-age" story about a geek trying to catch the attention of the most popualar girl in school. However, as Q discovers about Margo, the book isn't a mirror. A mirror will reflect anything you want to see from it, or maybe even what you've been told so many times what you should see. No, this book is a window, something that lets you see many different aspects and variations of the one "view" - ultimately, you should never judge a book by it's cover.
If you have a moment, pick up Paper Towns. I highly recommend it for a quick read <3 br="">
Don't forget to be awesome (I love you John Green!)
P.S. I'll be making this a regualr thing, so I've inserted a little image link in the side bar to a page I hope to fill with books I've read and short thoughts on how I found them...please check it out when you can! How did you find my first review? Please let me know ^_^
Thanks for letting me know about this review! I loved it, you wrote it in such an entertaining and sophisticated way, wow:)
ReplyDeleteAnd this book seems great, but like you I have a huge to-read-pile so this one will have to wait...
I love that you have started a book-page. I've always been curious about how to install pages like that on a blog, like this topic list and maybe an "about-page", any chance you could explain?