Paper Towns by John Green

If you know me at all, you know I love John Green. Yes, I know he’s married. But I was addicted to Brotherhood 2.0 last year and have Hank’s songs downloaded on my ipod. I watched John Green eat a blender-ed Happy Meal. But I don’t think the Yeti (his lovely wife) will mind another idolizing book blog entry from a librarian. I mean, really, at least the review is good!

I was lucky enough to get John Green to autograph my advanced reading copy of Paper Towns (due out in October 2008). Now my lucky five-year-old daughter has all three of his books personally autographed to her. She’ll learn a lot from reading this one!

Quentin is a nerdy senior. He and his best friends spend most of their time playing videogames and doing homework. But now his friends are talking about senior prom. And, all of a sudden, Quentin’s lovely neighbor Margo Roth Spiegelman (the full name works best for her) is at his window. Oh, what a spree they have! It involves revenge, backstabbing, spray paint, Vaseline, Veet, tulips, a bottle of water, Mountain Dew, and three catfish. You know you HAVE to read this book now, don’t you? Isn’t your curiosity peaked?

Margo is a lot like the character Alaska in Looking for Alaska. And Quentin is like the boy who loves Alaska. Quentin LOVES her and will do anything for her. So, when Margo disappears, Quentin starts his own investigation. He knows that he is the closest person to her. But then he discovers that Margo is a lot of different people and maybe he doesn’t know the real Margo.

But, to me, the way John Green tells the story makes it made of awesome. I giggled, chuckled, and laughed. The part about the Beast sword cracked me up (read it) and the way he tells the story of the black kid wearing a Heritage, Not Hate t-shirt killed me. John Green tells the kinds of jokes I like to hear. He’s just my kind of nerd.