Paper Towns
John Green, 2008
★ 3.70 from 1.5m ratings on Goodreads
A boy who has loved the girl next door from afar gets one wild night with her—and then she vanishes, leaving clues meant for him. Witty, restless and tinged with nostalgia, it moves from a wild night into a slower, clue-following search while Q's longing keeps the pages turning.
Feels like longing, nostalgia and curiosity. About identity, adventure and love.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy witty teenage voices, road-trip curiosity and stories about how we imagine other people. Be warned that some readers find the middle slow and Q's fixation on an idealized girl repetitive.
Why read it
It's a chance to watch a mystery become a way of thinking about how little we know of the people we long for.
A page from the book
What a subdivision looks like when you stop believing in it.
“Here’s what’s not beautiful about it: from here, you can’t see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place really is. You see how fake it all is. It’s not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It’s a paper town. I mean look at it, Q: look at all those cul-de-sacs, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I’ve lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters.” What readers say
Readers are split: many find the story funny, suspenseful, and emotionally engaging, while others are frustrated by the repetitive formula, the protagonist’s fixation on an idealized girl, and a slow middle or unsatisfying ending.
John Green.The title comes from a real cartographic trick: mapmakers inserted fake “paper towns” to catch copyists. Green turns the hoax into a metaphor for a person.
Books that feel like this
More by John Green
Looking for Alaska
John Green, 2005
A boy leaves Florida for an Alabama boarding school and falls in with a girl who makes every rule feel like a question worth breaking.
The Fault in Our Stars
John Green, 2012
A witty, dying teenager meets a boy who refuses to be solemn, and together they argue with oblivion, love, and the author of an unfinished book.
Turtles All the Way Down
John Green, 2017
An observant voice dissect's the anxiety of modern youth, navigating the disconnect between internal obsession and external performance.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is Paper Towns for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy witty teenage voices, road-trip curiosity and stories about how we imagine other people. Be warned that some readers find the middle slow and Q's fixation on an idealized girl repetitive.
- What is Paper Towns like?
- Witty, restless and tinged with nostalgia, it moves from a wild night into a slower, clue-following search while Q's longing keeps the pages turning. Feels like longing, nostalgia and curiosity. About identity, adventure and love.
- What should I read after Paper Towns?
- If you liked Paper Towns, try The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky), Twilight (Stephenie Meyer) and The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald).
A taste of the feed
The difference between being someone's crush and being seen.
It’s just that I don’t want to be somebody’s crush. If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don’t want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it too. I want them to be able to do whatever they want around me. And if they do something I don’t like, I’ll tell them.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower · Stephen Chbosky
What it feels like to be certain of something that could kill you.
About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was part of him — and I didn’t know how potent that part might be — that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.
Twilight · Stephenie Meyer
Being ninety percent certain is fine, until someone else does the arithmetic.
“You guessed? You must have been pretty sure, considering you could have killed me.” “I was ninety percent sure.” “I see,” Clary said. There must have been something in her voice, because he turned to look at her. Her hand cracked across his face, a slap that rocked him back on his heels. He put his hand to his cheek, more in surprise than pain. “What the hell was that for?” “The other ten percent.”
City of Bones · Cassandra Clare
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