“Margo always loved mysteries. And in everything that came afterward, I could never stop thinking that maybe she loved mysteries so much that she became one.” Paper Towns, written by the award winning John Green, involves numerous themes including self-discovery, friendship, and mystery. When Margo leaves Jefferson Park because no one truly understands her, Quentin and his friends embark on a journey to discover who Margo really is and where the paper town is that she went to. John Green learned of paper towns when he came across one during his own road trip. After driving down the same stretch of highway searching for a town on the map called Holen, John discovered that the town he was looking for only existed on the map. This was because …show more content…
His anxiety causes him to lack confidence, but he attempts to act confident in front of Margo because she likes it. Because of Margo, Q steps outside of is comfort zone to find her, and does things he would never have dreamt of doing. Margo Roth Spiegelman is the popular girl in school, and everyone, including herself, knew that she was self-centered. From the time Margo was nine years old, she has shown no fear. Margo has an exciting personality and loves adventures. Although, she claims to love planning the adventures more than actually carrying them through. Margo leaves Jefferson Park because she claims no one understands her. She goes to the paper town of Agloe because it’s “A paper town for a paper girl,”; she does not want to be found. Ben Starling is Q’s best friend and a sexist who calls girls “honeybunny.” Ben and Q fight multiple times because Ben believes Margo simply wants attention, and Ben jumped on the first chance he had to hang out with the popular kids. Despite their occasional conflicts, Ben remains loyal to Q. Radar is Q and Ben’s other best friend. He has a girlfriend, Angela, and they are both African-American. Angela is the only character who refers to Radar by his real name, Marcus. Radar’s parents are in the Guinness Book of World Records for owning the largest collection of black santas. He is the tech savvy member of the group who completes all the research and calculations to help find Margo. He also creates an
First, one goal that I have noticed in "Paper Towns" is that John Green had set up the problem. Here is a sentence from the book, that expresses the goal that Green uses, "As mom pulled up to school, I saw Margo's usual spot empty in the senior parking lot." Green is setting up the problem because that is the first observation that Quentin noticed about Margo's disappearance; later in the book Quentin notices more clue expressing
David McCullough argues that people have more time to read then they are willing to admit, gathering information is not a form of learning, and that reading happens to be the best means of learning. He references a story of Theodore Roosevelts’ adventure through the Dakota Territory in the middle of winter. In this story Roosevelt is following a couple of thieves, down the Mississippi river, because they stole his prize winning rowboat. After catching up to the thieves and capturing them, with the help of his trusty Winchester, he dragged them cross-country, with a borrowed wagon, to justice. Then traveling forty miles on foot across the snow covered badlands to railhead Dickinson. An astonishing feat, made memorable by Roosevelt reading all of Anna Karenina through this journey. McCullough thinks of this when people claim they have no time to read.
Margo Roth Spiegelman is the antagonist in Paper Towns. Although Margo Roth Spiegelman is not necessarily the “villain” of this novel, she is at the center of the conflict. She is the most popular girl in school; obviously she has a popular jock boyfriend, Jase and of course she is gorgeous. Margo has dirty blonde hair with blue eyes. In the book they describe her short and curvy with long bony fingers. She is a self described “Paper Girl.” Meaning she allows other to view her personality as would suit her looks. She doesn’t correct them on the fact that she is actually, quite a mysterious person and not the outgoing leader they all have grown to love or hate. She doesn’t publicize her actual personality, the one that loves folk music and poetry. Which is why one of her character traits is mysterious. Margo never showed her true self to anyone and before she could she disappeared. Her
Lacey, the last main character in Paper Towns, is a kind-hearted person who helped Quentin during his road trip to Agloe. In the book, Lacey describes Margo, “‘I honestly never thought of her as anything but my crazy beautiful friend who does all the crazy beautiful things,’” (Green 185). In the quote, Lacey talks about Margo, like she was her friend and cared about her, even though Margo
Agloe was a paper town until someone built a store and made it real. Then soon later it went back to be a paper town. This ties into the quote, "you will go to the paper towns and you will never come back." This quote is significant to the story because Margo went to a paper town and was not turning back home. She went to Agloe because it was "A paper town for a paper girl," as said on page 293. That is why she went. She says on page 294, "I thought maybe the paper cutout of a girl could start becoming real here also." Margo was a paper girl that wanted to become real. That is why she went to the paper town that became
Town is a series of thirteen short stories, each of which is told from different teenagers in a small town in NSW. Over the course of the year we meet a number of different young people from the town and are invited into their lives. The stories tackle a number of important and relevant young adult themes, including school life, family dynamics, sexuality, rumours and reputations, disability, illness and death. Whilst Roy does not shy away from tackling hard and confronting issues, his stories are told with a blend of humour and pathos which draw the reader in and allow him to entertain as well as to engage in some powerful social commentary. All of Roy’s characters are well-drawn and realistic. Readers can easily relate to these people and
Everyone in the world has a tendency to push their ideals onto other people. This point is illustrated throughout Paper Towns by John Green as main character Quentin searches for his childhood friend Margo Roth Spiegelman. Throughout the novel, he has several life-changing revelations on both himself and those around him. The characterization and misconceptions between main characters Margo and Quentin represent the deeper ideal that a person’s true self is hidden from the world.
The novel Paper Towns is about a boy named Quentin Jacobson who has spent most of his life being in love with a girl named Margo Roth Spiegelman. The two used to ride their bikes and play on the playground in Jefferson park until that one day changed everything. One night years later Margo shows up at Quentin's window summoning him for a little bit of revenge he follows. The next day Margo has disappeared and its all a mystery as to what happened to her and its up to Quentin to solve all the clues she has left behind.
Paper Towns exhibits that nothing is what it seems up close. Details are what make up someone's unique code, though many may seem great on the outside when you zoom in, the personality is completely distorted. John Green writes Margo to appear as a real down to earth girl. Margo has the perfect characteristic Quentin is willing to fall in love with. Quentin is blinded by his love for Margo and fails to look closer. Ben brings up to Quentin the true hardship of falling in love during the road trip, “ ‘It’s easy to like someone from a distance. But when she stopped being this amazing unattainable thing or whatever, and started being, like, just a regular girl… then I had to basically start liking a whole different person’”(267). Ben had the blindfold taken off, and is now able to see his love up close. Quentin should attempt to see Margo for who she really is, a regular girl, who took him on an adventure one great night.
Paper Towns starts in Orlando Florida, where Quentin Jacobsen has carried on with all his life, adoring Margo Roth Spiegelman since when they initially met. The book, on the other hand, begins with the foundation of Margo and Quentin's relationship. Back when Quentin and Margo were in primary school, they were friends ... Until one day, when amidst their journeys, they discovered a deceased man sitting under a tree. Margo was truly fascinated of the man, needing to explore his demise, yet Quentin needed to leave and call for help quickly. After they cleared out and the police had assumed control, Margo had really investigated it herself while Quentin was at home. One night after, Margo went to Quentin's window and lets him know what she had
Paper Towns was written by New York Time’s bestselling author John Green and recently adapted onto the big screen by director Jake Schreir. This young adult novel takes place in a fictional neighborhood located near Orlando, Florida. The novel focuses on the main character, Quentin Jacobsen, and his neighbor and former close friend, Margo Roth Spiegleman, who decided to run away and leave her life behind in this small “paper town” they call a home. Although this had been planned for a while, Margo had decided to leave soon after she rekindled her friendship with Quentin during a late night trip filled with mayhem and payback to those who wronged her. The movie adaption of Paper Towns is decently similar to the novel, but there are various
When she leaves Orlando, she is running from the perfect image everyone, including Q, has created for her. She is also getting away from paper towns and paper people in Orlando, even though she herself could very easily be considered paper. As she gets closer to Agloe, and farther from Orlando, she believes that she is getting farther and farther from her old paper-self. But she doesn't know that as she is becoming more real she is letting down people who saw her as paper by not being perfect. Margo doesn't see herself as paper, she thinks of herself as real, just surrounded by all paper people. But she soon realizes that all her peers and people around her aren't paper, and actually are real people she doesn't know enough. It's then realized that Margo is the same as everyone else, she is equal to everyone else around her, and is not the only real person amongst paper people. “On some fundamental level we find it difficult to understand that other people are human beings the same way we are. We idealize them as gods or dismiss them as animals.” (Green, 164)
Paper Towns is a movie portraying the journey of Quintin and his friends search for Margo, Quintin’s childhood crush that disappeared after they shared an adventurous night together (Bowen et al., 2015). Margo left clues behind which allowed Quintin and his friends to figure out where she was staying at. The last few weeks before they walk the stage, these friends are going out of their comfort zone and doing things that they have never done before. They realize that these few weeks will be the memories they will cherish as their senior year comes to an end. Throughout the film these young adults are slowly figuring out their own identity.
Paper Towns takes place in and around a fictional subdivision called Jefferson Park, located in suburban Orlando, Florida. The novel focuses on the narrator and protagonist, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen, and his neighbor, Margo Roth Spiegelman. As young children, Quentin and Margo one day discover the corpse of Robert Joyner, a divorced man who has committed suicide, in the park. Following this incident, the novel flashes forward to present-day Quentin and Margo, who are now high school students that have grown apart from each other. However, a month before their high school graduation, Margo shows up at Quentin's bedroom window with black face paint and clothes in the middle of the night. She has devised a revenge mission on a group of people who
“Margo always loved mysteries. And in everything that came afterward, I could never stop thinking that maybe she loved mysteries so much that she became one”. (Green 8). Paper Towns by John Green is a “brilliantly crafted, funny and coming-of-age journey about true friendship and true love”, (Penguin Group). It has won the Edgar Award and can be found in New York Times, Publishers Weekly and USA Today as a bestseller. Paper Towns is characterized as a mystery novel because it focuses on an investigator, its mood varies frequently, and it has a very relentless pace.