Paper Towns

I don’t very often write reviews on my blog – or if I’ve been reading/watching/listening to something worth reviewing then I’d save it for my end-of-month summary-thing. But this is an exception. Because it has been quite some time since I’ve been in such deep love with a book – to the extent that I still haven’t actually finished it. At the point of writing this, I have about fifty pages left to read, but I’m enjoying it so much that I don’t want the book to end – hence the spontaneous, gushing blog post.

The book is called Paper Towns, by American author John Green (of the YouTube vlogbrothers, if that’s your thing), and I ordered his book in the height of my YouTube obsession. As my obsession faded to a cursory ‘phase’, the book sat on my still-to-read shelf, wedged between the Stieg Larsson tomes and some ‘Classics’ I’ve been neglecting. But last week it caught my eye again and I thought, why not? It’s not like I’ve got 4000-word history essays, English coursework, driving theory and University applications to sort out.

For the first chapter, I wasn’t convinced. It was a bit too American, a bit too ‘high school’, a bit too detailed, trying a bit too hard to be funny. But it hit its stride in chapter two and, by chapter four, I was hooked. Since then I haven’t looked back. The story is kind of a romance/mystery/coming-of-age/comedy hybrid, split into three parts. The first part follows a high-school senior accompanying a girl he has loved from afar for years – the untouchably magnificent, beautiful, enigmatic Margo Roth Spiegelman – on an adventurous, “ingenious campaign of revenge” in one night. But the next morning she’s gone; presumably never to return. The second part chronicles his attempts to follow her clues and find her, and the third part is kind of an extension of the second part only more compact, suspenseful and fast. That make sense?

I wish I could figure out what it is that makes this book so awesome (hell, I wish I could bottle it and sell it), but after thinking far too deeply about it, have concluded that it’s a combination of three things: -
1. The protagonist: Quentin ‘Q’ Jacobsen. Q has a voice that is remarkably believable, witty, ‘boyish’ without being inaccessible to girls and flawed, but hugely likeable.
2. The combination of humour and philosophy: ‘philosophy’ isn’t quite the right word, but what Green has done is enviably clever. On one page you’ll be reading a thoughtful, profound discussion of the ways in which you can imagine someone to be something completely different to what they are, then you’ll turn over and giggle at the mere phrase “world’s largest collection of black Santas”. That is smart writing.
3. The story: it’s so compelling. It’s not just that you’re sucked into the physical mystery of following the clues and fitting them into a logical pattern, you’re drawn into the exploration of the characters – particularly Q and Margo.

But also, it’s hilarious. Seriously. I smile at ‘funny’ books all the time, I let out inelegant snorts now and again, sometimes I even chuckle. But, in Paper Towns, there’s this sequence involving peeing in a car (not literally in the car, but in a bottle in the car...oh, just read it for yourself) that quite literally had me in loud, irrepressible, belly-deep, take-you-by-surprise laughter. (Unfortunately, I was reading this in the bath, and it led to a nasty water-inhalation accident, but – miraculously – I didn’t drop the book, so it’s all good.)

To be honest though, the reason this book has been so special to me is because it’s triggered some personal creativity. I’ve been writing as a hobby since I was twelve – and I worry that people don’t take me seriously when I say that, but I’ve written more than 400,000 words worth of prose in the past few years, I’ve been trying (and failing abysmally) to get a couple of books published since I was fifteen and I love it more than life (I’m sorry if that sounded unbearably arrogant :S). Anyway, the past six months of my writing life have been tormented by the most crippling, unavoidable, confidence-shattering writer’s block that I just haven’t been able to push past.

But I think – and I say that hesitantly – that it’s finally gone. Or, at least, it’s going. And I think that I have Paper Towns to thank. Not only has it made me laugh, entertained me and aided in a somewhat brutal clearing of my sinuses, it’s also inspired me in the true, deep, cheesy meaning of the word. And the only way I can think of to thank John Green is to write this review, and hope that maybe he’ll see it one day. It’s a long shot, and doesn’t by any means cover the extent of my gratitude, but at least it’s something.