RATING GUIDE:
5 – A keeper!
4 – Very good
3 – Passable
2 – I’d rather read
a telephone book
1 – An absolute bomb.
Read at your own risk!
“Paper Towns” is the third book in my John Green Reading
Marathon. The story is told from the
point of view of a teenaged boy named Quentin (“Q” for short). Apart from an unusual, horrific incident in
his childhood (he stumbles across a corpse, of all things), Q seems like your
everyday, garden variety Geek-Boy next door … until his then-childhood friend
(and unrequited love) and now-Popular Girl Margo suddenly vanishes. Now, Q, his friends Radar and Ben and
Margo’s friend Lacey find themselves in a game that’s not funny at all; for
they are now in a race against time to find Margo … alive.
As in the case of “Looking For Alaska,” John Green makes
use of a stereotypical character we all know as the protagonist --- the
Invisible Geek Boy (Q in this book, Miles in “Looking For Alaska”) who is in
love with another stereotypical character, the beautiful, enigmatic,
complicated, Self-Obsessed Bitch (Margo in this book, Alaska in “Looking For
Alaska”). However, there is nothing stereotypical at all about this book. Just like actual “paper towns,” John’s book
is very different, and so much more than what we might perceive or expect it to
be.
Rightly or wrongly, we have been trained to make
assumptions and have certain expectations about people. For instance, there’s nothing heroic or
romantic about invisible geek boys like Q, or that the only kind of bed popular
girls like Margo will lie in is a bed of roses. But by the time I was done reading the book, I had fallen in love
with Q and his friends and I realized how wonderful, how liberating it was to
be “ordinary,” and that being pretty or popular was not a guarantee of a happy
life. In fact, being that kind of
person was a trap in itself.
John Green delivered the commencement speech during the
graduation rites of Butler University in 2013.
In his speech, John spoke about the hero’s journey not as a journey from
strength to weakness, but in weakness to strength. About the value of being a nobody, he said, “For in learning how
to be a nobody, you will learn how not to be a jerk.” He also spoke of the need to develop empathy, that other people
aren’t “simply one thing or the other,” but “contain multitudes”.
Here is the video of his speech, which I found in YouTube
:
These reminders that John Green gave to the graduates of
Butler University are repeated in this book.
Through Q, Margo and the other wonderful characters of this book, John
Green reminds us that we must look beyond the surface, to learn how to look
beyond stereotypes. To make an effort
in truly getting to know the people we come in contact with and develop an
empathy for what they are going through and what they are about.
It is these profound and relevant reminders, gift-wrapped
and hidden so expertly in seemingly ordinary characters that make John Green
and his books so special. These are the
types of books that not just remind us of our own teenage selves, or present to
us what it’s like to be a young person in today’s world. These are the types of books that challenge
us to be better people, no matter who we are.
Definitely a keeper!
RATING: 5
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