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Title: Paper Towns | Author: John Green
Publisher: Dutton Books | Year: 2008 |
Paper Towns is about a 12th grade high school boy named Quentin Jacobsen, or as his friends call him, Q. He lives with his parents in a subdivision named Jefferson Park in Orlando, Florida (Here's an interesting detail about Jefferson Park: a long time ago, it belonged to an guy named Dr. Jefferson Jefferson, and the truth is he was not a doctor of any kind. He was an orange juice salesman named Jefferson Jefferson but when he became rich, he went to court and made "Jefferson" his middle name and changed his first name into "Dr.", as in capital D, lowercase r, period. Pretty wacky right).
Q has been having this huge crush on his neighbour, Margo Roth Spiegelman, since he was little. One time when they were nine, they were going for a walk in Jefferson Park (a park in Jefferson Park). Then they found a guy slumped against a tree circled by blood, with blood pouring from his mouth. Then the police took care of the dead guy. At night, Margo visited Q (she appeared on his bedroom window) and it turns out that she did some investigating and she found out some stuff about the dead guy they found who turns out to be named Robert Joyner. Robert committed suicide and according to Margo he did it because "all the strings inside him broke".
Since that day, Margo and Q basically had different lives. While Q was an ordinary not-so-popular guy at school, Margo was this typical popular girl. So like a few days before the exams, one night, Margo suddenly appears on Q's window again like she did when they were nine and she said that she was going to take Q on a mission and that they needed his car (his mother's, actually). Turns out that the mission was 1) pulling pranks on Margo's boyfriend, Jase, because he cheated on her, 2) pulling pranks on Margo's friend because none of them told her that her Jase was cheating and she's basically pissed of them, 3) breaking into the SunTrust Building and 4) breaking into Sea World. Then the next morning, she was missing.
The thing is, Margo had ran away from home several times and she had always left clues for her parents to find her although her parents never succeed in finding her, and she had always went back home. But this time, it's like the clues were meant for Q, as if she wants him to find her. So, Q tries to figure out where Margo is, with the help of his friends and some of Margo's friends. But the more clues he discovered, the more he realized that the Margo everybody knew isn't who Margo really is.
Writing every detail about Q's discoveries and investigations would take too long (plus it would spoil the book for you), so I'll just skip it. So eventually, they found where Margo was, and it turns out she didn't even want to be found. She ran away to Agloe, a fake village created by a company who made maps as a copyright trap, or also called paper town, but some unknown person built a general store there and thus the village became real even though nobody occupies it. Margo chose Agloe because she was a paper girl, and maybe, in a place where a paper town became real, a paper girl such as herself could become real too, and she never intended to come back to Orlando. In fact, she planned to travel somewhere else.
Here's the interesting (yet annoying) part of the book: it doesn't have a proper ending. So Q asked Margo to come back but she didn't want to and Q really wants to be with Margo but he had to return to Orlando. So they agreed that Q would return but Margo would visit sometime. Then when Margo was going to leave, she just couldn't and Q also couldn't stand watching her leave and then that's it. YUP, THAT'S IT. So we know nothing about wether Margo continues to travel or returns to Orlando and like be with Q, what about Q's college, etc. Yup.
Even though I felt like throwing the book across the room because of the ending, I think that's one of the things that make this book interesting, and one of the reasons why I really like this book (I'm a big fan of "ngegantung" endings). I think this is a great book, not only because of the great & interesting story but also because of John Green's choice of words. His words are somehow funny and deep and simple and sophisticated at the same time and, I don't know, I just really really enjoy reading it.
Here's a quote from Paper Towns:
“Peeing is like a good book in that it is very, very hard to stop once you start.”
