love, read, write

Okay. So I know. It’s a pretty quick post, considering I posted yesterday. It took me six hours to finish this book. Versus the practically two week long trek I took reading “The Book Thief” (due to my spotted schedule of reading those two weeks). Then again, I came home from the library and sat down on the couch and read the book (the book, referring to “Paper Towns”) straight until I finished, half because I was determined to move on to another book, half because I wanted to earn money (long story—basically I’m employed at a dollar an hour).
Paper Towns was basically one of those “I’m young and reckless” sort of books, with a bit of 'lessons' and 'morals' sewn in between. Kind of like the "Christopher Creed" book (I don't quite feel like remembering the title, or now that I do remember, typing it), though I liked the "Christopher Creed" book a lot more. It gave me a powerful message.

Books are often rated with the misconception that you are rating the general “good-ness” of the book. I believe that it is best fit that we should rate books on how we liked them rather than the general level or “good-ness” of it. Because then we think that we are great beings that have the right and power to look at a book objectively and rate it that way, when in truth, nobody can rate things objectively. It is humanly impossible. And I mean humanly in every way it can be interpreted.
So while Paper Towns may be a ‘high quality’ book or a ‘high level’ book, as in, it was written well and it appealed to the right audience, it had a strong tone and a nice plot—I am rating it regardless. I am rating it purely on how I enjoyed reading it.
This segues nice into my next element of this post…

Paper Towns.
By John Green.
(NERDFIGHTERS! :D)

One word to describe the book: Expectations
One sentence to describe the book: The people you know may not be the people they really are; the person you are may not be the person you think you are.
One quote to sum up the entire book:

“ ‘You know your problem, Quentin? You keep expecting people not to be themselves. I mean, I could hate you for being massively unpunctual and for never being interested in anything other than Margo Roth Spiegelman […] –but I don’t give a shit, man, because you’re you. […] Just saying: stop thinking Ben should be you, and he needs to stop thinking you should be him, and y’all just chill the hell out.’ ”
--John Green, Paper Towns

Okay, I admit it. There were a few profane words in there, but hey, it’s a quote. I didn’t say it, Radar did. (Who, by the way, would be a great friend if he were real. If he were real. Sigh.)
If you could decipher the meaning (or at least the nuance) of the quote in between the ellipses and brackets and all, you should have noticed that the basic message of Radar (the character who is saying this quote) is that people think of others the way they think they are. But in reality, the “person I think you are” and the “person you really are” are two different people. And quite often, ‘the person you think your friends or family are’ turns out to reflect you more than it reflects the real ‘them.’ This is what I believe is the crux of the story, or, in this case, the message that John Green is trying to feebly toss from the pages.

And finally the actual summary of the book:
Quentin Jacobsen has loved Margo Roth Spiegelman ever since they were neighbors. From the beginning, her daring personality, her bravery, and her—pure awesomeness—never ceased to amaze him. The problem was, as they grew up, Margo flocked in with the cheerleaders and jocks, and Q became the Grammarian and sarcastic nerd. They’re still neighbors now, and it’s senior year of high school. Q never ceases to try to get glimpses of Margo at school whenever possible, and he is still hopelessly in love. Margo is known for her awesomeness, her strange stories, and mysterious disappearances. She is almost a legend, having run away from home to campaign TPing houses, to fleeing off to Mississippi and leaving only an ambiguous clue by eating all but the letters “MISP” in her alphabet soup. Then one day, when Margo climbs into Q’s room through his bedroom window, he is amazed, flattered, and utterly scared. But when she asks him to borrow his car and assist her on “righting a few wrongs,” he obliges before he can think twice about the consequences. After the mysterious night of adventures with the mysterious Margo, she disappears from the town, leaving clues that Q is sure were left for him. Having fallen even deeper into love with Margo’s strange but unique personality, he decides to go off on a reckless, twisted, crazy, yet awesome adventure to find his Margo—or at least the Margo that he thinks she is.



John Green talked about a few things in the book to us. One, obviously, is the expectations or rather, ideas, we have of others. I think that you are a nice, bubbly person, when in fact you are a quiet, contemplative person who doesn’t like to speak. Or perhaps I think you are very reserved and shy, when in fact you are full of creative ideas and passionate about spreading them. And when you start cross-referencing the “idea of someone” from different people’s points of view, you start getting an idea of not the person, but rather the people who are creating an idea of that person. For example, Lacey might think that Margo is a bubbly, outgoing person, while Q thinks that she is mysterious and beautiful. Ben thinks that she wants the world to think she’s in the middle and that she’s hiding back in Orlando. It all reflects them rather than Margo herself.
On that note, here is a nice quote that explains this. The wise words of Radar:

“ ‘I never knew you [Margo] until I got to know you through your clues,’ he says. ‘I like the clues more than I like you.’ ”
--John Green, Paper Towns

Another point that John Green is trying to say is the beauty of leaving. Or rather, the feeling of leaving. That sweet feeling you get when you leave, when you want to bid good-bye to a place that meant so much to you, and never come back.
…though I am only saying this through the words of John Green, because I have no idea what that feels like. To have the urge to leave a place that meant so much to you. Unfortunately, I’m not at that stage of life yet. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like leaving a place that meant a lot to me. Perhaps I’m being shallow. Perhaps I’m not. I have no idea.

He also drops in a metaphor of life. Grass. That we’re all interconnected, we’re linked to each other, but in the end, we not exactly are each other.

Additionally, he mentions in the beginning of the book, through Margo’s words, the ‘conventional way of life’ and how boring it just might be. School, college, job, marriage, family, money, kids, kids to school, kids to college, kids to job, kids to marriage, etc. etc. until we die. She (Margo)’s saying that we should carpe that diem and stop living for the future and start living for the now. It’s a good point, yes, and often, I get these urges to ditch school, abandon all conventional ways of living, and run off into the forest with a stick and a rock with leaves as my garments.

...metaphorically, I mean. Not literally.



I also have this certain quote that I really liked from the book. It was something I had thought about a lot and concluded myself quite a while ago (I actually wrote a short story related to this, it was one of those story ideas that came to my head on the bus once. I was blessed to have my phone with me, so I jotted it down before it evaporated away), and I was so happy to see it written in a book (though there’s thousands of other books out there with similar quotes, many which I probably have read already):

“ ‘I always thought Lacey was so hot and so awesome and so cool, but now when it actually comes to being with her, its not the exact same. People are different when you can smell them up close, you know? […] It’s easy to like someone from a distance. But when she stopped being this amazing unattainable thing or whatever, and started being, like, just a regular girl with a weird relationship with food and frequent crankiness who’s kinda bossy—then I had to basically start liking a whole different person.’ “
--John Green, Paper Towns

I am currently editing my story which is themed around ‘beauty from a distance’ and that things are beautiful when they’re farther away, and the blemishes come to light when you’re up close. It’s one of the few story ideas that I found somewhere far from home that actually made it onto paper (or computer, rather).

So yeah.
Paper Towns was an a-okay book. A three out of five. I liked it. Eh.


Probably going to read a story or two from Mr. Edgar Allan Poe or plunge into some Sigmund Freud next—I went to the library today.
(And I got a free bookmark!! I love libraries. They give you free books AND free bookmarks. Thank you, librarians of this world. You make life more livable.)
(For that matter, I thank all humans, for having a soul and a mind and being able to use that as a vehicle to create art. All art. Writing included.)
(Let’s forget about the terrible imperfections and impurities that we have poisoned in those same souls.)



Happy reading
      (and writing)!