To most middle-grade adults, the name John Green is heard at least once daily. This is an author who has stormed through young adult literature with a keen eye for the human emotional capacity as well as possesses a sense of humor known to the age group for which his work is intended. The first time I encountered John Green was in my 10^th grade English class  where the teacher used one of his videos in order to help us learn about the French Revolution. I didn’t know that this was a famous author at the time; I just thought he was a really cool guy that had a sense for sharing information in a relatable manner. Eventually, though, I started hearing his name in the media more often. His book The Fault in Our Stars was being made into a movie and it became almost impossible to go on any form of social media without seeing something relating to it. So, I figured maybe I should take a look at this author. Maybe there was something to all the hype. At the time, The Fault in Our Stars was still too expensive for me to purchase so I ended up getting Looking for Alaska which is also apparently very famous.

After reading this book, I found a growing Love for John Green. He wrote to the heart of teenagers in a way that I had never quite encountered before. His words were filled with sarcasm and adventure that were best paired with the description of a beautiful but unobtainable girl. Green pulls his stories from his own life experiences and creates a fictitious reality that readers find themselves hurtling into heart first.

Enter Paper Towns.

This book was one of my friend’s favorites and I had heard her mention it multiple times. Recently, though, my media feed was once again bombarded with the posts of John Green fans excited for the movie version of Paper Towns. Now, I’m the type of reader who likes to read a book before seeing the movie so, naturally, this one ended up on my list. My friend let me borrow it from her fraternity alumni boyfriend and when I opened the pages, a piece of a Miller Lite box being used as a makeshift bookmark fell out. Obviously, I was already excited.

The story starts out with a kind of stained beauty that is very hard to capture. The two young characters find a the body of a suicide victim in their neighborhood. The rest of the novel seems to be a type of parallel to this deceased figure with Margo and Quentin trying to create a character to this dead guy as well as trying to create a character for Margo herself. As the novel continues, Quentin thinks back to this man in the park who had dead eyes and broken strings and relates it to this beautiful and unreachable girl who has haunted him since childhood. Margo is his neighbor and loves mysteries. Her love of mysteries may not be a choice, though, but rather the effect of Margo being a mystery even to herself.

I loved this idea that Green creates of a girl who no one really knows. Every person has their own version of Margo, each just a little different from the next. It reminds me of how each reader has their own image of a character but no two reader’s characters are the same. Green really hammers the importance of self-exploration in this novel and I love that. Margo and Quentin go on a journey that is at the same time together and separate from each other in order to find out exactly who they are and who they thought they were. It is really amazing to see novels like this for young adults where the characters aren’t some sort of unrealistically beautiful girl but instead real teenagers with real flaws. If, thousands of years from now hopefully, I ever have children, I can guarantee that this is a book I would want them to read as a teenager.

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