“Smart and funny. Put those two together, and I’m hooked. That’s why I love John Green. As he did with Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines, Green has populated Paper Towns with a likeable cast of smart, funny teen characters. Leader of the pack is Quentin, known as Q, who enlists band geek Ben, computer nerd Radar, and the formerly unapproachable Lacey in solving the disappearance of his neighbor Margo, the quirky, self-absorbed center of the high school solar system. Their quest is fueled by Margo’s cryptic clues, including highlighted passages from Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” which lead Q to question perception, reality, and the connectedness of the human race.
While the pace of the journey lags at times – especially during the final roadtrip and sections where Q roams central Florida searching one abandoned subdivision after another – Paper Towns is a worthy destination. Beware, though, one distracting logical detour: Despite poring over search engines and the Wikipedia-like "Omnictionary" for information on paper towns, it takes Ben and Radar weeks – and the development of a customized "bot" – to unearth a reference to Agloe, NY, even though the phrase "paper town" is included in its Omnictionary entry.
(Oh, and be sure to visit Omnictionary; John Green has way too much fun online. DFTBA!)”
