Paper Towns by John Green

I am such a fan of John Green's work so I started Paper Towns with very high expectations. And it lived up to every one of them (sigh).

Take two high school seniors--Quentin Jacobsen, who hangs out with the school band, and plays video games with his friends, and Margo Roth Spiegelman, the beautiful, popular girl next door, whose crazy antics are legendary. They used to be friends but now inhabit different worlds--until Margo climbs into Quentin’s window one night dressed in black and asks him to join her on an adventure. And what an adventure it is, involving dead fish, paint, and breaking into Sea World! But when he gets to school the next day Margo has disappeared. And Quentin becomes obsessed with finding her.

With his friends, Quentin follows the meandering complicated trail of clues Margo left behind her--through Walt Whitman’s poetry, Woody Guthrie’s music, and maps of paper towns, all the while thinking about friendship and how little we really know the people around us. The closer he seems to get, the more elusive Margo seems, but Quentin really doesn’t care about prom, about finals, he just wants to find out what has happened to Margo. And, of course, so did I. I was spellbound until the end.

Paper Towns is out October 16th—-you’ll have time to read it before John Green comes to Kepler’s on the 29th to talk about it. I can’t wait.