For some reason, when I try to write or talk about Paper Towns everything comes out cheesy and overly sentimental so I apologize in advance.
It's been a long time since I've read a book straight through in one day, but I started Paper Towns over my morning tea and finished it before dinner.
Speaking of tea, I tried World Market's jasmine pearls green tea and was pleasantly surprised! It was wonderfully light and fragrant and floral. That was my tea for this book (and a while afterwards). But back to topic...
Paper Towns reads like half mystery novel and half love letter to the high school me - feeling invisible and struggling with leaving the only world I'd ever known, even if I hated it. That high school me related to Q and a little bit to Margo, but the latter is more of a stretch.
Q's obsession with finding Margo drives the story, but at its heart this book is about discovery. Q discovering himself, what he really wants for his future; discovering his friends and people he thought were enemies; discovering the elusive girl next door that he's dreamed about for half his life.
---Alright, if you haven't finished the book, read no further---
As much as I enjoyed Paper Towns (and I did), the ending felt anticlimactic. Through the whole book, I wanted Q and his friends to solve the mystery and find Margo, but it wasn't until they did that I realized that she should have died. Right alongside Q, I feared she was dead and hoped that she wasn't. But once they found her, it felt wrong.
The story opens with Q and Margo finding a dead body and Margo's nine-year old response to it was, "maybe all the strings inside him broke." Margo's death and Q's discovery of her would've created a lovely symmetry, especially since the night before she disappeared, Margo says that all of her strings have broken. Instead they have an awkward and angry and then tearful reunion. Q leaves with his friends while Margo continues with her odd version of running away.
Even while I write this, I'm slightly conflicted because I cannot imagine the ending where Margo dies and Q finds her and it still works. Maybe the book couldn't have ended any other way and maybe this ending, even if it felt slightly disappointing, is the most true-to-life ending...
Or maybe I've just been reading too much fantasy lately and wanted a more spectacular finish, regardless of what the spectacle was.
It's been a long time since I've read a book straight through in one day, but I started Paper Towns over my morning tea and finished it before dinner.
Paper Towns reads like half mystery novel and half love letter to the high school me - feeling invisible and struggling with leaving the only world I'd ever known, even if I hated it. That high school me related to Q and a little bit to Margo, but the latter is more of a stretch.
Q's obsession with finding Margo drives the story, but at its heart this book is about discovery. Q discovering himself, what he really wants for his future; discovering his friends and people he thought were enemies; discovering the elusive girl next door that he's dreamed about for half his life.
---Alright, if you haven't finished the book, read no further---
As much as I enjoyed Paper Towns (and I did), the ending felt anticlimactic. Through the whole book, I wanted Q and his friends to solve the mystery and find Margo, but it wasn't until they did that I realized that she should have died. Right alongside Q, I feared she was dead and hoped that she wasn't. But once they found her, it felt wrong.
The story opens with Q and Margo finding a dead body and Margo's nine-year old response to it was, "maybe all the strings inside him broke." Margo's death and Q's discovery of her would've created a lovely symmetry, especially since the night before she disappeared, Margo says that all of her strings have broken. Instead they have an awkward and angry and then tearful reunion. Q leaves with his friends while Margo continues with her odd version of running away.
Even while I write this, I'm slightly conflicted because I cannot imagine the ending where Margo dies and Q finds her and it still works. Maybe the book couldn't have ended any other way and maybe this ending, even if it felt slightly disappointing, is the most true-to-life ending...
Or maybe I've just been reading too much fantasy lately and wanted a more spectacular finish, regardless of what the spectacle was.
While reading your post, I kept thinking, "Yes! Yes, yes, to all things!" I felt the best part of Paper Towns was the road trip. It was Q and his growing group of friends becoming more self-reliant and getting to know each other - really know each other. And while Margo was interesting in the beginning, she kind of become very one-dimensional even in the midst of their super deep, waxing philosophical conversation. It would have been more apt that she had been found dead, she would have had more depth then, but then, the book would have rang WAY too similar to one of John Green's other books and Paper Towns already looked too cut from that book's mold as it was. I thought it was a quick read, and I liked everyone else BUT Margo. I'm not sure either how I think it should have ended. Maybe that she did show up at graduation, make a grand entrance so that everything was about her like Ben said and maybe have PISSED Q OFF for it, you think?
ReplyDeleteI agree that the roadtrip was the best part! I also agree that by the end, she was extremely one-dimensional. I really liked Margo at the beginning and I especially liked the way Q saw Margo. But by the end, I didn't like her at all - had she shown up at graduation, she would've solidified my dislike because then it would've been just some attention-craving stunt by a selfish, spoiled kid.
ReplyDeleteMaybe he originally wrote it where they found her dead, but his editor said it was too similar and had him change it. I doubt that's what happened, but that's what it feels like. The ending just felt so forced.
It almost felt like a different book by the ending. Like it was written for another story. Maybe it's kinda like Horns versus Heart Shaped Box - if I hadn't read the other book first, this one wouldn't have felt so similar and then inferior. But then again, I'm not sure if you've read Looking For Alaska and you had the same reaction...
ReplyDeleteYeah, that explanation doesn't work for me - it's the first book by John Green that I've read. And I definitely felt the same way.
DeleteAlso, I don't remember thinking that Horns and Heart Shaped Box felt similar...
It wasn't that they felt similar, it was that whichever one you read first, you preferred over the other. I think it was a bad metaphor on my part.
Deletehmmm... I guess that's kind of true for lots of writers. The first one always seems like the best no matter how many other things you've read by that writer. I don't know why...
DeleteWell, especially if there seems to be similarities between them. Although, I read The Fault In Our Stars - it was completely different - and by far his best (of the whole three books of his I've read.) Also, are you trying to say Return to Arethane is better than any of the others?
DeleteHa! I kind of feel like the Arethane books are one long book that just happen to be broken up a bit. I feel the same way about lots of series (like Abhorsen, too). But I am partial to Arethane over the non-Arethane books... I love what I've read so far of the witch story, but I still think I'll prefer Emily and Arethane. I haven't read The Fault In Our Stars yet, but I've heard so much about it that I feel like I should.
DeleteYou should, it is really good. I haven't watched the movie yet, because I feel like this is one of those cases that the movie won't do the book justice. Just know that it made me cry like a baby, so you'll DEFINITELY cry!
ReplyDeleteI actually started watching the movie - then the book will just be better! Also I already know how it ends.
ReplyDeleteI finished both - the book and the movie. I really liked both, but as always, the book was better. Now I'll have to compare Paper Towns - that movie is coming out soon too. And the kid who plays Q was also in The Fault In Our Stars.
DeleteYeah, it's kinda incestuous, the way they cast their movies. Did the book make you cry? Looking For Alaska was pretty good, too. But again, kinda similar to PT, if not a more fulfilling ending.
DeleteThey both made me cry - even knowing what was coming.
DeleteYou know, now that I've read 2 of his, I can definitively say that the first I read was not my favorite.
DeleteWhich one would you consider the first? Paper Towns? I think TFIOS was kinda like his lottery - it was very different and very powerful, but maybe like the Ultimate Ding Dong of his books, you know?
DeleteI didn't mean the first he wrote - I meant the first I read. I liked The Fault In Our Stars much more than Paper Towns. And yeah, ultimate ding dong is a good comparison, but I've only read those two so it's hard to say for sure.
ReplyDeleteNow I've read all of you guys' comments, and MAN. Our feelings are just so different. I feel that Margo started out incredibly one-dimensional and ended up as a real person. And I hated the way Q saw her. It was so false and idealized. It wasn't a realistic view of a person, and it put such unrealistic and impossible expectations on this person you don't even really know. I may have stronger feelings about all of this though because of the way I feel about the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype. It sets everyone up for failure. It's a 100% impossible standard girls feel they need to live up to, and it's a 100% unrealistic creation boys are looking for. I'm gonna post what I have written about it, and there'll be more on that. Also, I just want to say: I love this! So glad we are doing this.
ReplyDeleteUGH. So it deleted the first half of my comment. But what I started out was in response to your initial post, Bree. Your description of the book - "half mystery novel and half love letter to the high school me" - is just perfect. But after that, I think we feel opposite ways. I related much much more to Margo, especially at the end. And, through most of the book, I wanted Margo to die. Partly because I was annoyed and upset and disappointed by her as a character, and partly because it seemed right. It seemed like the best and most true way to end the story. As scary and sad as it would be, it seemed to fit. But once I got to the end I felt like it was so much better. I think his ending was perfect. There was so much we learned about the real Margo in the last few pages, things we wouldn't and couldn't have known had it been a suicide mission. If she had died, she would have remained that caricature of a person, we never would have gotten to witness the real girl. And Q never would have learned his big lesson. "What a treacherous thing it is to believe that a person is more than a person."
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that Q's version of her was idealized and unrealistic, but I think that's human nature. Not just boys, but people in general tend to have this idea in their head about how someone will be. That's why people get weirdly obsessed with celebrities - even though they've never met them and that person could be a total dick in real life, they get this idea on their head that this is who that person is and everything would be perfect if you could only meet (cough, cough... Bob Dylan). I still like that Q thought she was ideal - he was unrealistic, but he learned that and still loved her at the end.
ReplyDeleteHahaha well, that's not a very accurate comparison because, you know, Bob Dylan is perfection in human form.
ReplyDeleteBut in all seriousness, I completely agree. That's why I love so much that she lives and John Green debunks the entire fantasy. I feel like with this book he is telling everyone: "Forget this. People are people. Don't expect them to be anything more or less than that. Hold space and allow for them to be exactly who they are." And I feel like that is so beautiful.
I agree and that makes me like the ending more. It makes sense and that isn't how I initially saw it, but I like the way you see it. That's all I'm writing here and I'll respond to your post.
ReplyDelete