Paper Towns



"''My miracle was that I ended up living next to Margo Roth Spiegelman."

- Quentin 'Q' Jacobsen

A young adult novel written by John Green.

High school senior Quentin Jacobsen (known to his friends as "Q") has been in love with his neighbor, the mysterious, beautiful, and adventuresome Margo Roth Spiegelman for as long as he can remember. So when one night she appears at his window to ask for his help in playing revenge pranks, he can't refuse. The two travel to Margo's ex-friend Becca's house, where Margo's boyfriend is cheating on her, along with her boyfriend's house, the house of an old bully, and Sea World, where Margo and Q dance together to an old song playing on the loudspeaker. At the end of the night, Margo leaves Q with a hug and says "I. Will. Miss. Hanging. Out. With. You."

The next day at school, Q is hardly surprised that Margo isn't there. But when no one sees her for days, Q and his friends Radar and Ben begin searching for the clues Margo had apparently left for Q, including a poster of Woody Guthrie on her window, parts of the poem "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman, and an abandoned mini-mall where she wrote stories from her childhood and explored, with the help of Margo's best friend, Lacey. Using these clues, they must attempt to find the riddle wrapped in an enigma that is Margo Roth Spiegelman.


 * Affectionate Parody: Omnictionary is an online encyclopedia which attempts to be a go-to source for everything but tends to suffer from narrow interest pools and vandalism, which should put one in mind of a certain website that we are not. Similarly, Radar is an obvious Affectionate Parody of the sort of people who use said site.
 * Alpha Bitch: Becca.
 * Arc Words: "paper towns"
 * Bittersweet Ending:
 * Black and Nerdy: Radar is this trope so much that it is sometimes hard to remember that he's supposed to be black.
 * Black Best Friend: Radar to Q, although he has a white best friend, too.
 * Bottomless Bladder: Partially subverted. Every character urinates at least once on the  but nobody mentions ever having to poop.
 * Casanova Wannabe: Ben
 * Collector of the Strange: "IT'S NOT MY FAULT THAT MY PARENTS OWN THE WORLD'S LARGEST COLLECTION OF BLACK SANTAS!"
 * Defictionalization: In-universe -
 * Also, in real universe. Agloe was based on a real "paper town."
 * Omnictionary is a real site now but is really more focused on the activities and history of Nerdfighteria.
 * Disproportionate Retribution: Margo's revenge on Lacey, especially
 * Expy: Q is essentially Miles from Looking for Alaska, and Margo has a fair bit in common with the titular character of the same book.
 * With some Colinish qualities as well. Makes sense, because all of them are at least part Author Avatar.
 * John Green said that Q had little in common with his high school self other than height and vague nerdity, but that's just his high school self. Q is still used to make John's points for him.
 * According to Word of God, this is at least somewhat intentional. Where Looking for Alaska has a fairly straight example of Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Paper Towns is a deconstruction of the trope.
 * Freudian Trio: Quentin, Radar, and Ben,
 * You could say they're a Freudian Trio as well, being Ego, Superego and Id, respectively.
 * Going Commando: The boys all make a deal to do this at graduation. (Not just a lack of underwear, but nothing but the gown.)
 * Hot Mom: Q's mom. At least, according to Ben.
 * Hypocritical Humor: I'm paraphrasing, but at one point Q notes, "I wanted to berate Ben for using chat-speak IRL."
 * Le Parkour: Margo does this a lot, in addition to urban exploring.
 * Literal Metaphor: Margo leaves a clue by highlighting a line from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself": "Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!" The gang considers various metaphorical meanings, but the actual clue meant that there was another clue hidden inside one of Q's door hinges.
 * Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Margo, in spades.
 * Still,
 * The author's brother even mentions this in a song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MKbMWOBlWA
 * The song is a bit of a Defictionalization, too. (And a tribute to the awesomeness of Nerdfighters.)
 * Nerds Are Sexy: Lacey who is so pretty she could have virtually any boy in school goes for geeky Ben.
 * Noodle Implements: "I'm not sure what you're supposed to say to the checkout woman at twelve-thirty in the morning when you put thirteen pounds of catfish, Veet, the fat-daddy-size tub of Vaseline, a six-pack of Mountain Dew, a can of blue spray paint, and a dozen tulips on the conveyor belt..." You do find out what they're for, though.
 * The Rashomon: Throughout the whole book, we see Margo and Q's relationship and history through Q's point of view, and towards the end we get Margo's side.
 * Shout-Out: Most of Margo's bread crumb trail consists of them.
 * As well as Q's English teacher, Dr. Holden.
 * Sleep Cute: Q pictures doing this, but it doesn't actually happen.
 * Something That Begins With Boring: Q, Ben, Radar, and Lacy play metaphysical eye spy on the road trip. They're definitely bored, but the "metaphysical" part stops it from being trivial.
 * Spoiled Sweet:
 * Stepford Smiler:, although even this is more complicated than it usually is.
 * There Was a Door: Q and his friends end up breaking through the boarded-up windows of the mini-mall when they couldn't get the doors open by pulling. Later on, Q realizes the doors open inwards and finds that they weren't locked at all.
 * Token Minority: Radar; he even lampshades this by referring to himself as the "token black friend" of the group.
 * With Friends Like These...: What drives Margo to leave.
 * Partially subverted. Becca is indeed awful, but Lacey proves herself loyal.
 * Partially subverted. Becca is indeed awful, but Lacey proves herself loyal.