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1-Page Summary of Paper Towns

Overall Summary

John Green’s novel, Paper Towns, is a coming-of-age story that follows the lives of two childhood friends. Quentin Jacobsen and Margo Roth Spiegelman have been neighbors for years. He has known her since he was nine years old and has always admired her from afar. She is the only person who can complete his life in every way possible because she is his miracle. Their friendship has cooled over the years as they grow older but one night when Margo shows up at Quentin’s window just before midnight, their relationship will be thrown into a whirlwind adventure with self-discovery and trust issues.

After a night with Margo, Quentin is eager to take their relationship to the next level. However, when he discovers that she has disappeared from school and later finds out that she’s missing altogether, his perceptions of her change. He must navigate through high school while trying to track down his friend and discover what happened to her. Along with Radar and Ben, Quentin must confront the world of popularity in order to find Margo. With poetry, literature and music as well as advice from Lacey—Margo’s best friend—Quentin embarks on this journey without knowing who or what he will encounter along the way.

Paper Towns is about the struggle to connect with other people, and how important it is to see them for who they really are. The main character searches for his childhood friend in order to find out more about her and what makes her tick. He also learns that he needs to understand himself better before he can know others well enough to make good decisions regarding love, loss, and leaving home.

Prologue

Quentin and Margo are next door neighbors since childhood. Quentin describes her as “the most fantastically gorgeous creature that God had ever created.” One day, when they were nine-years-old, the two biked to a nearby park to play. However, something was different about this particular day: Quentin could not say what it was that felt off. Suddenly, Margo called out his name and pointed towards a gnarled tree in the center of the park. Slumped against the tree was a dead man in suit; there was blood pouring from his distorted mouth and flies resting on his forehead. Although Quentin wanted to flee at once (he is visibly disturbed by the sight), Margo is intrigued by the body and moves towards it instead; she finally listens to him after he urges her again and again to run away home with him.

When Quentin and Margo got back to their homes, his parents called the police. They are both therapists so they talked to him about life’s cycle. Even though it was scary, Quentin did not know the man who died and he would go insane if he let those deaths of people he didn’t know affect him personally. Since that night, when he went to sleep, Margo was standing outside his window. She told him that she had done an investigation on the dead man because she wanted to make sure it wasn’t a suicide or murder. The lawyer shot himself because of a divorce but also because something else troubled him as well which led her to believe that all the strings inside broke in him. In conclusion, Margo seemed pale and distant as if staring at someone behind Quentin while talking about this incident. He recalls that she loved memories so much; perhaps she loved them too much in fact since now she has become one herself after death.

Chapter 1

Quentin is a senior at Winter Park High School in Orlando, FL. He has woken up late on Wednesday morning, and his mother has to drive him to school instead of him catching a ride with his friends. She talks to him about prom and school on the ride over, though Quentin does not believe in prom. When he finally arrives at school, his best friend, Ben Starling, informs him that Radar (one of their other friends) has made plans to go to prom with one of their classmates Angela. Though Quentin has no interest in attending prom himself, Ben is obsessed with the idea of finding a date for prom. He’s tried many times before but was turned down because people heard the story that Becca started about “Bloody Ben” when he had kidney stones. ”