Some of my Twitter friends have been absolutely raving about John Green's books for long enough that I wanted to see what the fuss was about, so I went for the sensible option of sampling the cheapest one I found.
Paper Towns is a coming-of-age story set in Florida, in the couple of weeks leading up to high school graduation. Q and his friends are neither the most popular nor the least popular kids in school, geeky but not entirely lacking in social skills. When Q's next-door neighbour Margo, whom he's been in love with since they were children, disappears seemingly leaving a trail of clues behind her, they decide to try and interpret them, culminating in a road trip to find her, whether she be alive or dead.
There's a bit of the feel of a modern-day
The Body/
Stand By Me to
Paper Towns, although the teenagers have mobile phones and some of the plot revolves around an unreliable online resource that totally isn't a Wikipedia spoof *cough* they still have to do most of their investigating through legwork and getting to know the more obscure corners of their state. The book's message that to some extent we all make fictionalised versions of the people around us, all different from each other and from the reality, is rather overstated by the end of the novel but overall it's a very sweet and well-written story.
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