Banned Book: Paper Towns by John Green

By -
Paper Towns by John Green


Quentin Jacobsen has lived next to Margo Roth Spiegelman since they were two years old. When they were nine they discovered a dead body together in Jefferson Park. By the time they reached their senior year of high school they barely knew each other. The social circles of life having led them in different directions. Then one day she randomly knocks on his window asking for a favor, which was really an adventure around town. But the next day she has disappeared. She has ran away again to the dismay and anger of her parents. The Spiegelmans have given up on her. Quentin though hasn’t lost faith and is determined to find her. Margo has left clues before when she has disappeared and this time is no different, except they are left for Quentin. He has no idea why she has disappeared or why she has left bread crumbs for him to find but he is hoping he can be brave enough to follow to the end. No matter what he may find.
So Quentin Jacobsen is that not popular guy that used to be picked on until someone in the social circles made it clear that he shouldn’t be messed with. He isn’t in the band but his best friends are and he admits that he is kind of geek who likes to play video games and has no social life. Then there’s Margo, this beautiful social butterfly with the attractive popular boyfriend and attractive best friends whom everyone loves. But Quentin is perfectly fine being him and Margo hates her life and all the two dimensional people she has around her. Paper Towns is a novel of discovery. Not only is Quentin discovering that this idea he has of Margo is just that, a made up idea, but he is becoming aware of all the superficial qualities he is seeing around himself. He isn’t sure what the plan was when Margo left him these clues and what kind of self-discovery he is supposed to be on but he is willing and in many ways eager and anxious to take on this journey. Quentin is terrified of what he might or might not find but he can’t stop looking and trying to decipher these clues. It all has to mean something. He just has to figure out what.
I could not put this book down. Green created such a well-developed, well delivered, brilliantly thought out and funny novel that had so much depth and was constantly propelling itself forward. Quentin was a brilliant narrator and his friends, Radar and Ben, were great companions for this journey. Margo was a great vehicle for discovery. She was a mystery and Quentin became a detective trying to solve her story, who ended up answering a lot of questions not only about Margo but himself. Paper Towns was easy to read and extremely entertaining. I enjoyed it immensely and I would recommend it to those who enjoy young adult. A mother in Pasco County, Fl doesn’t at all agree with me. Pasco County had Paper Towns on their summer reading until a mother of a 13 year old girl found it inappropriate for their age range and wrote an email to the school about her dissatisfaction. Its references to teenage sex, cursing and what she labeled as misogynistic references disturbed her. Days later the school removed it from the reading list. It has since been placed back on the list but with a description stating that it may contain “sensitive issues and language.” Everyone isn’t going to relate to a novel the same way. As a mom of course you have a say over what your child reads but the school board took it a step too far when they removed it from their reading list. I’m glad they changed their position and placed it back on the list. This was a dynamic story, filled with references to what goes on during high school. But this story was more than the curse words and mentioning of teenage sex. It was more than one characters obsession with “honeybunnies.” It is a coming of age story that takes into account all the different aspects of coming of age.

“Pasco school drops ‘Fault in Our Stars’ authors book after parents email”  Solocheck, Jeffrey S.   http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/john-green-novel-on-summer-reading-list-draws-objection-from-pasco-parent/2185740


“‘Paper Towns’ once banned at Pasco School is back on the summer reading list” Solocheck, Jeffrey S. http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/paper-towns-once-banned-at-pasco-school-is-back-on-summer-reading-list/2190440

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt by Steve Johnson

By -
Image
Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt by Steve Johnson Bringing to life the story of a notorious pirate to a modern audience isn’t an easy task. We’re too used to the comfort of easy travel, the mythos of pirates and the commercialized imagery produced by movies and television. Images of Jack Sparrow and Long John Silver have been part of entertainment for so long that the idea of true piracy and all it’s ruthlessness has almost been washed away. It isn’t until you’re able to wash away the false images and submerge yourself into the actual history that you can see piracy for it’s truly brutal nature. It also brings up many questions about governments, laws, corporations, scandal, colonization and other factors that allowed piracy to flourish and exist in the manner that it did for so long. Piracy didn’t exist in a bubble. Enemy of All Mankind takes the story of one pirate, who helped usher in the Golden Age of Piracy, and exa
Read more

Odetta: A Life in Music and Protest by Ian Zack

By -
Image
Odetta: A Life in Music and Protest by Ian Zack          In my case it is always the image of Odetta that comes to mind when I hear her name. The tall, undeniably Black woman, hair in an afro, guitar in hand. It must be that I simply did not know enough about her life, her struggle, and even her music to convey more than that image. But her image is memorable and her presence something not easily described. This book fills in the gaps in the story of Odetta that I didn’t know. Looking back at my childhood, her most memorable songs are the ones I’ve known most of my life, singing in my school’s chapel along with hundreds of other Black students, the words having meaning that I can only truly comprehend decades later as a Black woman.          Zack takes his time with this biography, letting the readers learn as much about Odetta as we do the time from whence she came. Her migration from Alabama to California, her feelings of coming from a loveless, forced marriage,
Read more

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

By -
Image
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood I’m going to cut right to the chase. This book is well written but we didn’t need it. I expected more. I wanted more and this fell flat. I’ve read The Handmaid’s Tale , more than once, and I genuinely enjoyed it. The single narrative of Offred lent itself to the story well and it was genuinely a terrifying society. I watched the first two series of the show and though I have my reservations about it, I still thought it was a good show. It does a great job answering questions that the book could not because of its singular narrative. It filled out the world. This book revolves around three narratives: Aunt Lydia, who we know had a helping hand in stripping women of their sense of self and molded them to be controlled by the men of Gilead; Agnes, raised in Gilead with a Commander as father, privileged and set to marry well; and Daisy, a teenager raised in Canada hating Gilead and the abuses women endured that she’s learned about since she
Read more