“Paper Towns” by John Green – The Heart and Brain Don’t Mix

How many times has it happened that you took a liking for a person you met, but the more time you spent with them, the more you discovered their true self, learning that your first impressions couldn't have been more wrong. 

This is especially the case for situations where the heart is involved; somewhat unfortunately, emotions don’t have eyes or brains, and it is not until they fade that the logic and rational thinking can start to kick in. This is somewhat akin to what happens in Paper Towns, a novel by two-time Printz Medalist and New York Times bestseller, John Green.

In Paper Towns, we are presented with Quentin Jacobsen, a young man who has spent most of his life idealizing a relationship between himself and the girl he loves more than anything, Margo Roth Spiegelman. For most of his life, Quentin was forced to admire her from afar, wishing for the day this pain would come to an end… and he gets it. One day, Margo decides to crawl into his life and lead him on a path that takes him God-knows where. 

Needless to say, Quentin doesn't hesitate to follow for a micro-second. While he has always considered Margo to have been a bit strange, the closer he gets to her, the more he discovers that the girl he always loved and venerated may not be who he thought she was. What’s more, it seems that Quentin keeps running into clues and bits of information that were placed specifically for him.

While it may seem like this book is some kind of cookie-cutter mystery about Margo being some kind of inter-dimensional monster that can shape shift into humans (or a serial killer, whichever you prefer), it’s far from that. As a matter of fact, while solving the mystery behind Margo’s odd behavior may very well be one of the factors which give you the drive to read the book, it isn’t the main point of it.

From what I gather, what John Green tries to demonstrate in this book that we never know people as well as we think that we do. You only know about others what they let you see, which becomes increasingly true when dealing with cunning and intelligent beings. And just to make it clear, he gets that point across quite well.

As far as the technical aspects in the story go, I have to admit that the characters were very well-developed, if not through background story then through snappy, insightful dialog, thoughts and actions. 

You’re not going to be reading banal exchanges where the characters act like the most average humans on Earth (the important characters at least). Each and every participant of the story has some kind of uniqueness and panache to them, and somehow, this makes it easier to follow and be interested in what they actually think, do and have to say. 

All in all, I swallowed this book whole in a night, and I think it will be a perfect read for anyone who likes relatively short and yet eye-opening stories about the reality of being a human.

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John Green  Personal site John Green is an American author who mostly specializes in young adult fiction novels such as Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars. He also runs an online blog through YouTube, and in 2006 he was awarded the Printz Award for his debut novel.