Young Writers Society

I do not recall the book being this bad.

I do not recall the book being this bad.

I do not recall the book being this bad.

Juvenile, impulsive, ham-fisted, and poorly adapted: I believe that in Green's repertoire of novels to follow The Fault In Our Stars, Paper Towns was an abhorrent choice for his writerly legacy in film.

I believe that the most standout moments of the film come from Quentin's night out with Margo as ninjas seeking justice. There's legitimate bonding, well-written and organic dialogue, and a glimpse into the hardest criticism this film can receive: a flush of mania.

Across the years, Green has been accused of employing the Manic Pixie Dream Girl--a woman to be loved for her quirks and absolute difference from all else in the male gaze's world that anything the woman does throws the main character into a rush of happiness and motivation: essentially simulated mania.

This applies both in film and the book, as Margo Roth Spiegleman's uniqueness and push for Quentin to make impulsive decisions is the entire crux of the plot, and for that reason, be character-removed, there would be nothing but sex-crazed teenagers talking incessantly about prom. And don't get me wrong:


What are your thoughts? Echo back anything I've said if you agree or disagree. Is Paper Towns your favorite film ever? Does the DVD case prop up your kitchen table?

Let us know!

Ah, this book.

Paper Towns is a book I read at exactly the right time in my life to actually resonate with me. I felt much like Margo, wanting to do something with my life and searching for something bigger. I was about to dive into university, about to restart my life into what I thought was the dream I was supposed to have, and this book felt like an encouragement it would all be okay.

Then real life hit me, and the whole "reboot life into something better because the present situation is suffocating" is a highly, highly unstable message. You can't just reboot your life and start over. Running from your past is generally considered a bad idea, and I feel like all Margo did was run from her past. She's going to find that bright lights and the big city is just as papery as a suburb, once you settle into living there. Like, some situations genuinely do need to be escaped from, but "chronic boredom" isn't one of them.

I feel like Margo is a bit of a twist on MPDG. She very purposely took on the role, while also revealing a certain level of complexity and a firm public/private persona split. But at the same time, she did have a hand in creating that image for herself and it wasn't reflected in the final conversation.

I find this book impossible to engage with on the reread, because the book is extremely one note. Everything about it is built around "who is Margo?" and once you know who she is, there isn't anything particularly gripping about the story.

Having been spoilered for two other Green books— The Fault in our Stars and Looking for Alaska— I have noticed this is a bit of a pattern for him. Everything about the story is a single-pointed focus on whatever reveal the MPDG is supposed to create, and after that, there's nothing.

I haven't watched the movie because after reading the book, I felt no desire to go through the whole thing all over again. It ends up feeling hollow for me, after the reveal. Everything is about searching for a future where things are "better", without really analyzing what makes the present so intolerable. Margo's obsession to be somebody is impossible to follow, and Quentin's deep dive to discover who an enigma is... shouldn't really be rewarded-with-cookies behaviour.

There was no true lasting change for him— he didn't really start looking at anybody else other than girls any differently, and even with the other couple, there wasn't anything beyond a sense of "you're different from the others in the group."

It tries to sell itself as a story of discovering the "true person" under the public, but because there is so much focus on only going after "interesting" people, that all falls flat.

There’s a popular song lyric that goes ‘But I set fire to the rain’. Now if it were me, I’d rather be setting fire to something more flammable, such as John Green’s next attempt at high school dramas mixed in with a bit too much humor. So I admire his effort going into this, trying to do the drama comedy melody, but as a I have proved before, one of them needs to take the backseat for a minute. I love comedy books, which is why I was more interested in picking this one up than TFiOS. I carry on my judgement of his writing area but we’ll get to that momentarily.

If I remember correctly Lum, you’re from somewhere in the south, so you’ll understand a bit of the offensive I take at books written by Yankees. (but in the case you are a yankee that was not meant as an insult) Corn country is not necessarily the north, but it’s not the south either, so my pre-judgement of John Green, proves one big thing. You should always research authors before you read/review their books. See I figured once a corn country kid, always corn country kid. But turns out he lived in Alabama and Florida for awhile, just long enough for him to slip by that separate area of judgement for writing about the south. And though everything he said was realistically true, and it’s things we say about ourselves, my friends still found themselves hating that aspect. I didn’t, half the crap was true, that’s what made it fun.

The best part of the book for me, was the 40 pages of traveling up I-95 because only the lord knows how many times I’ve made that trip. If you don’t understand the truthfulness of that whole section, I would recommend taking a road trip from Miami to New York on 95 right now. By the end, you’ll be on cassette tape number 20 and singing along with Hank to I Saw the Light. So you get the gist of this paragraph, this is the only part that really resonated with me because it was something I was familiar with.

Besides those occasional spots of humor and drama mixing perfectly, the book isn’t that well put together. They bounce around quite a bit between the unhealthy obsession with Margo and the dead guy haunting their dreams and the wacko detective. If I’m being completely honest, the only way I made it to my favorite part was because of the wacko detective and the black santas. The black santa collection saved the book in my eyes.

But yeah those are just a couple of my main points and I’m finishing up a more thorough review that I’ll link later. On the film, I am tempted to check it out from the library just because the book had a few redeeming qualities that I would hope would carry over.
Just remember lum and rosendorn,

I actually liked Paper Towns.

I mean, I often claim that it's basically "Gone Girl for teenagers," and it is to some extent. Both anti-heroines of both stories take on a stereotype usually based around their male counterpart's fantasies, and then they twist that stereotype and make it into something surreal--Margo might not have intended that in the beginning, but to some extent Amy from Gone Girl definitely did. If the book were solely centered on Margo as a character and how she faces reality in a realistic way (as in when she reaches the city bad things happen and she's not in the best shape but she's trying), I feel like it would've fared better and I might've liked it more as its own entity. Heck, I'd take a comedy roadtrip where Margo's just cruising around with her biker friends, no 'real-life' implication necessary, just straight up enjoyable escapist fantasy. But John Green doesn't write escapism, which is a shame, because he's probably the only writer that's made me actually want to live in his world without me puking out saccharine and cheese.

The problem with Paper Towns for the most part is that it's main character (like almost all of John's books) is the shadow of the heroine, which is an interesting concept, but it requires a little more push to be effective. A character can easily be dependent on another character, they can definitely be motivated solely by that character, but that doesn't mean they don't have dimensions. After all, what's the point of asking "How far will this character go for this other character" if you don't even know how deep said character goes? I feel like Quentin is, ironically, paper thin as a main lead, and I can see why that would be a big turn off for most people. For me, I'd only be angry if Quentin and Margo actually got together by the end. As much as I doubt that Margo is anymore developed than the rest of suburbia, there's a general consistency about it--Margo is mysterious and has several layers to her, while Quentin is generally plain and very paper-ish, thus the two can't be together. It satisfied me to some extent, it was brilliant to me back in the day, but I've seen much better executions with much less asinine narration. But coming back to the Gone Girl example, Amy's husband (it goes to show how powerful the character of Amy is considering I can't remember his name) while not as complex as his wife, has dimensions. He's shown a certain amount of animosity for his wife, a certain amount of love and familiarity, but most importantly, a disturbing level of similarity. Whereas Margo overshadows Quentin, Amy overshadows and colors her husband, painting him in a different light than what one would initially imagine.

The other teen fic tropes, including the quirky best friends and the parties and the quirks, aren't a big no-no for me, but I can see it as being a great detraction for anybody else really.It's not a particularly original book, but it puts a spin to it, I don't mind it too much.