The girl next door pulls him into one wild night of revenge, then vanishes and leaves him clues
A missing neighbor and a trail of clues
Quentin Jacobsen has admired his neighbor Margo Roth Spiegelman from a distance for years. A few weeks before graduation in suburban Orlando, she climbs through his bedroom window and recruits him, and his car, for an all-night campaign of pranks against people who wronged her. The next morning she is gone, and Quentin starts finding clues that seem to be meant for him.
Who will enjoy it
Teens and adults who like witty friendships, road trips and stories about seeing people as they really are.
What you will get
A clever mystery that turns into a road-trip comedy and then into something wiser, about the gap between the person we imagine and the person who is really there.
Paper Towns Facts: Pages, Genre and Setting
Genre
Young Adult · Mystery · Road trip · Friendship
Length
305 pages · ≈ 9 h
More about this book
Quentin Jacobsen lives in Jefferson Park, a quiet subdivision outside Orlando, and has spent most of his life admiring Margo Roth Spiegelman from the house next door. Margo is a school legend: fearless, funny and always rumored to be somewhere more exciting. One night near the end of senior year she appears at his window dressed in black and asks to borrow him, and his car, for a long list of revenge pranks.
The night is a thrill, and Quentin hopes it is the start of something. Instead, Margo is missing the next day. She has run off before, but this time she seems to have left a trail for him, including a highlighted copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass and an abandoned mini-mall on the edge of town. With his best friends Ben and Radar, and Margo's friend Lacey, Quentin follows the clues to her fascination with paper towns, places that exist on maps but not in real life. The search ends in a frantic road trip north, racing against the clock.
Funny, quick and quietly wise about how we turn people into stories. About 305 pages, with a much-loved road-trip section near the end. Winner of the Edgar Award and adapted as a film in 2015.
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