Paper Towns: Be Careful What You Wish For

      Ah, yes. Remember back in high school, or in middle school, or maybe even more recently, that certain person who was just out of reach, but who you just could not get out of your head? Maybe it was an infatuation from afar, but perhaps more frustratingly, maybe it was a case of "so close, but yet so far." This is what Paper Towns reminded me of. The curiosity of what is inside that certain someone's head, the discouraging let downs, as well as the occasional glimpses of hope that they may feel similarly infatuated with you. Well, maybe not infatuated, but most likely you would have taken what you were able to get, even if a slight inclination in your favor.
    This story centers around a boy named Quentin Jacobsen, who is a rather well-adjusted kid living in a subdivision within the rather artificial town of Orlando, Florida. Quentin in obsessed with the girl next door: Margo Roth Spiegelman. Margo is vivacious, intelligent, out-spoken, beautiful, and, for Quentin, frustratingly elusive. She is also out of Quentin's league, as she is the "queen" of their high school, whereas Quentin is a band kid. Suffice to say, their paths do not cross too often except for the fact that they are neighbors, except when Margo shows up one night at Quentin's window dressed in all black and takes him on a tour around the town enacting personal revenge until the early morning. This excursion gets Quentin's hopes up about becoming closer with Margo, but to his dismay she does not show up at school after that night. Bewildered, Quentin, along with his friends, soon find a series of clues that they suppose Margo so that they may track her down. What happens should they find her is another object of Quentin's imagination.
      Is this dubious cat-and-mouse game an extended metaphor for Quentin's chase after Margo in a romantic sense? I think so. He's not sure if he's reading the clues correctly, and when he gets a lead it keeps him searching on... but he is also not sure what he will find in the end.
      Yes, I do remember feeling like this, myself. It is not fun, but it can also be oddly exhilarating at times. This seems to also describe Quentin's rising and falling hope. Margo, on the other hand, seems somehow above this all. She also seems a little conceited, as she seems to express little interest in others. She does, however, seem to analyze others enough to be able to make snap judgments about how shallow and insubstantial their lives must be in their artificial communities, hence the book's title.
      So yeah, I was able to relate to this book. I also think that it will be of value to others who read it, since it is a common habit of young people to strive for goals with tunnel vision goggles on, and then only later really comes to terms with what they had once put so much emotional investment in.
      What else can you do? You live and you learn.