Shelly's Book Blog

School Library Journal's Best Books 2008 list also includes John Green's Paper Towns. This is a mystery/detective story where Margo Roth Spiegelman, a high school senior, disappears after taking her neighbor and fellow senior, Quentin Jacobsen, on a nighttime adventure. Margo has disappeared before, more than once, so her parents are so fed up that they decide to lock her out of the house and forget about her. Quentin (also known as Q) cannot let go of the mystery of Margo's disappearance, though, partly because he has secretly admired her from afar for years, and partly because he feels that she has left clues meant just for him to find. His friends are occupied with traditional end-of-the-year activities such as prom and graduation, but Q keeps thinking about Margo. His investigation leads him to Walt Whitman's poem, "Leaves of Grass," and to a series of "paper towns," or places that are on maps but do not really exist.

I found this book fascinating. The usual teen lit standards seem to be kind of knocked about in this story. Green makes sure that his readers see all the kids -- nerds, jocks, cool kids -- as just people in the end, people who are not always who or what they seem to be. This is a suspenseful mystery but also a philosophical, thought-provoking novel. I liked it a lot.