Today's post is Paper Towns by John Green. From the many John Green fans in my school, I've come to the conclusion that it is the favorite of 89% of the Green fans. I am sorry to say that I do not fall into this 89%. I have trouble even being kind to it--it was a huge disappointment, especially with his other books in mind. It honestly felt like it was done, rehashed and reused. It was like one of those rulers made out of recycled materials, you know? It's composed of what was once a plastic bottle and Tupperware and what have you, but now it's something new and different--but you can still see the flecks of what into its composition. It's the same old, just in a new form.
I know I sound like I'm being a huge jerk, and I don't really mean to be, but this was just... such a let down. It had its moments, but in its whole, it was just... well.
Our story begins with Q(uentin), who loves Margo, a girl he was friends with as a child but after seeing a dead man in the park with her, never really spoke to her again. Until, however, she hatches a revenge plot upon her friend who was sleeping with her boyfriend, her boyfriend, and the friend who she believes knew all about it in the middle of the night and they break into Sea World and stuff. And then she runs away, and Q becomes determined to follow clues he thinks Margo left for him to find her.
I couldn't help but notice similarities early on: Q is kind of a loser. He made best friends with his best friends because there was really no one else available. Unattainable girl, who he loves but warns us before the story really even begins that he will not end up with her.
And, when they're on their nighttime excursion, Margo makes this speech that I guess is supposed to sound really deep: "'Here's what's not beautiful about it: from here, you can't see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place really is. You can see how fake it all is. It's not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It's a paper town... all those cul-de-sacs... those streets... all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store... all the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I've lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters'" (57-58). Maybe you're thinking that's really deep. Maybe I'm just jaded. But I was kind of waiting for more. Like... your point is? Yes? I've read many books by people with this same opinion. Throw something new at me. In this case, maybe it was just bad luck that I happened to read this after I read Palahniuk, Ginsberg, et cetera. It just seemed same old, same old.
Later on, during a drunken party, he refers to his classmates as "paper kids" (178), too. It was just like... shut up. Do you think hating your town and thinking everything is fake is so novel? It's like those kids who discover The Beatles or Bob Dylan and act like they invented them. They've been around for fifty, sixty some-odd years. This idea has been around for much longer.
Though I have to admit, her revenge tactic (throwing fish in the aforementioned people's homes) is genius. I would love to do that to everyone who's done me one over.
"It seemed to me that this was not a place you go to live. It was a place you go to die'" (139).
I hate Q's obsession with finding Margo, too. I understand that he's worried. But his friends get annoyed, and I got annoyed. Get a hobby. Go on Youtube. Do something. Something that's not obsessing, anyway. Jeez. He acts like a whiny brat too, when everyone's excited about prom. Some people are going to prom and are going to have fun. Calm down.
"All along, I kept thinking, I will never do this again, I will never be here again, this will never be my locker again, Radar and I will never write notes in calculus again, I will never see Margo across the hall again. This was the first time in my life that so many things would never happen again" (228). He's about to graduate high school, obviously. And to that I can relate. I haven't quite hit that stage yet, but it's on the horizon.
They go on a road trip, Q and a bunch of his friends, to find Margo. How predictable, how much like an eighties high school movie. It seemed so... boring. Even funny things didn't really make me laugh, like there's this whole scene where Ben has to pee and they can't stop so he pees into a bottle. It's supposed to be hilarious, but I was so... uninterested. Hell, I wasn't even grossed out. Their trip was ridiculous, too. He had the damn thing scheduled down to the half second, which quite frankly is kind of missing the point of a road trip. I mean, they're supposed to be fun and exciting, but he made the thing feel like a slow day at the New York stock exchange (except for a few choice moments). I mean, jeez, if On the Road's road trips were like this, Kerouac would have broken my heart.
"Maybe the sure knowledge that she is alive makes all of that possible again--even if I never see proof of it. I can almost imagine a happiness without her, the ability to let her her go, to feel our roots are connected even if I never see that leaf of grass again'" (274).
"What a treacherous thing it is to believe that a person is more than a person" (282).
"'I mean, he was something that happened to me, you know? But before he was this minor figure in the drama of my life, he was--you know, the central figure in the drama of his own life'" (300). Margo's talking about the dead man she and Q saw as kids. I like that whole scene too, burying her childhood self. And when she talked about her journal it struck me and felt as familiar as my own hand, her story about her the detective and her dog and all... Well, that did strike me. There were some gems in there.
I can't recommend this. However, I highly recommend Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines. I haven't read his most recent book yet.
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