Paper Towns

This incredibly funny and witty novel written by John Green not only sparked my attention from the very first few pages, but forced me to keep reading until the last page; some of which I had to read twice due to the immense amount of humor. Paper Towns led me on an emotional rollercoaster causing me to sometimes fall in love with certain characters yet become nothing but frustrated with others. The book follows the story of a 17 year old boy by the name of Quentin Jacobsen (also referred to as 'Q') and his travels to discover his childhood friend Margo Spiegelman after an epic adventure around Orlando followed by her sudden disappearance. Even though I could not truly relate to some of the situations the characters went through during the story, the way in which it was written almost made me feel like I had known them my entire life. This is one of the main reasons why I would rate this book a 9 out of 10. John Green's style of writing forces the reader to get to know the characters without realizing they are simply fictional figures in a fictional story.

Robert Joyner, a minor character in the novel, was only ever mentioned in the prologue of the book, despite his great significance. Green provides us with a flashback of when Quentin and Margo, both only 9 at the time, discover the corpse of a dead body whilst walking through a local park. They soon after uncover the truth about how he was a 36-year old lawyer who committed suicide due to his divorce and depression. Margo's mysterious quote, 'Maybe all the strings inside him broke' as a response to his cause of death was when I first got a sense of what kind of character she would be in this story, and ultimately led me to believe that she was indeed talking about herself.

One internal conflict that was made very clear when I was reading this book was how Quentin was sometimes left undecided about his feelings for Margo. He would feel determined to find her one day, but feel discouraged and depressed another day as result of not figuring out the secret clues Margo would leave him. This leads onto how Quentin began to fall in love with the mysterious and 'perfect' girl Margo seemed to be, when in fact she had many problems going on in her life that caused her to run away.

External conflicts also arose in this story, such as the disagreements that occurred between Quentin and his friends Ben, Radar, and Lacey. All determined to figure out where