Paper Towns

This has been the best book we've read in this class so far. It is actually one of my new personal favorites as well. The characters in this book seemed more real than any of the other fiction stories we've read. I laughed out loud several times. For example, I loved the part where Q's parents bought him the new "car" for graduation, and his hopes were so high, just to find out when he went outside to the driveway, that it was a minivan. His reaction was priceless! In my opinion, that's exactly how a teenager thinks, and that's exactly how clueless parents can be. I think because the author was fairly young himself, and not too far removed from the teenage years, it allowed for more realistic characters. Margo struck me as extremely selfish, and that was my least favorite character of all. She seemed to be the most immature of them all, even though that's the opposite of what she thought of herself. That is a typical teenage attitude, though. I loved the ironic moments in the story as well, and the humor that the author inserted in various parts. One of the best parts was the rebel flag shirt that read, "Heritage, not Hate" that Q bought for Radar at the BP station, followed by the pink "World's Best Grandma" t-shirt. I think the author did a great job of developing all the characters in the story. You were able to understand the personalitites of each character -- Radar was the band geek/brainiac/computer nerd, Ben was the self-absorbed, girl-crazy band geek, and Lacy was the kind-hearted, beautiful, popular girl. Quentin was a great character to get to know as well. He was the most introspective of them all, I think. He too was somewhat nerdy, incredibly smart, somewhat attractive, and cared nothing really about all the things that normal teenagers cared about, save his education (which seems to be a recurring theme in these young adolescent lit books). The teens care mainly about their relationships, but education is also priority as well. It sends a good message to the readers.