Paper Towns is the first ever book I’ve read from the popular young adult author, John Green. This is also part of my Secret Book Club’s Book of the Month.

Plot: Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life–dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge–he follows. 


After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues–and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees of the girl he thought he knew.








I enjoyed reading Paper Towns. My first thought was that it may be a young adult love story but when I did begin reading the story, I realized it was a mystery – where in the world had Margo Roth Spiegelman disappeared to?

But more than just being a mystery novel, I liked how this book talked about how people create a picture in their mind about who they think the person they have romantic feelings for is especially when they don’t really have a close everyday interaction with the person. Kinda like how that line from Boyzone’s Picture of You song goes “I had a picture of you in my mind. Never knew it would be so wrong…”  

In this story, Q knew Margo from when they were kids. But they grew apart. Lived different lives as they grew older. But Q always loved Margo from afar. He had in his mind, an imagined version of who Margo is – something he probably got from just watching her from a distance.

This story sure got to me because I’ve been down the road of having romantic feelings for someone from how I saw that someone in my head… Okay confession time!

In high school, I had a big crush on a popular boy who was my seatmate freshman year. Because we sat together, we would talk at times. Well mostly on paper – exchanging handwritten notes because I was such a shy girl and didn’t have the nerve to really talk to him. Anyway, our being seatmates –  that didn’t last long. Just for a quarter during our freshman year and we never got to be classmates ever again after that. But even though that was the case, I always admired him from a distance. My big crush lasted until sophomore year in College. I even asked him to become part of my 18 roses for my debut party.

Whenever people asked me what I had seen in him, I would tell them “Well, he’s smart (because he is really good in Math!), he’s a great dancer (because he was part of our school’s dance club), he’s got musical talent (because he could strum a few songs on the guitar) and heck yes, he was good looking! He was nice to me too. Yes, he would smile and say hi when we pass by each other down the hall in school but that was as far as our interaction went.

But still I had put him up on a pedestal. I worshiped him…

Though I never knew the real him. Outside of those superficial things I said, I didn’t know who really was. How he was as a brother. A son. A friend. I didn’t know what his ambitions in life were. I didn’t know what his quirks were. What annoyed him? What things really make him happy? I had absolutely no idea. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

What if I knew all those things about him? Would I have liked him as much and for as long as I did?

It’s a good read and so I’m not surprised it’s about to become a movie! Meet the cast:

Nat Wolff will portray Quentin “Q” Jacobsen – the lead guy of the story.

Cara Delevigne, top-paid fashion models in the world, is gonna play Margo.

Justice Smith will play Radar, one of Q’s friends who spends his free time editing the “Omnictionary” website which is kinda like Wikipedia. His parents have the largest collection of Black Santas in the world.

Austin Abrams will play another one of Q’s friends, Ben. He’s a member of the school band and obsesses about “honeybunnies”.

Halston Sage will play Lacey Pemberton, a friend of Margo’s who helps Q and his friends go on a search to find missing Margo.

The movie is set to hit theaters next year, June 2015.



P.S. Photos grabbed from IndyStar.