Ratings671
Average rating3.6
Paper Towns er historien om Margo og Q. Men også historien om et mysterie. Mysteriet om de mennesker, vi idealiserer så højt, at vi i vores jagt på at finde dem opdager, at vi leder efter de forkerte... John Green udforsker med Paper Towns, hvordan vi føler med, forelsker os i og idealiserer mennesker, som i virkeligheden er irriterende eller træffer forfærdelige beslutninger. Kærlighedshistorien om Margo & Q giver læseren mere end bare en romantisk og sjov fortælling, men også noget at tænke over - hvilket efterhånden er John Greens specialitet. Barndomsvennerne Q og Margo går på samme high school, men er vokset fra hinanden. Q følger fascineret fra sidelinjen den gådefulde, smukke Margo, som flirter rundt med de populære elever på skolen. Men hun bliver først et mysterium, da hun en tilfældig aften kravler ind gennem Qs vindue og tilbage i hans liv - med planer om en hævnkampagne mod alle der nogensinde har såret hende. Efter deres eskapade-nat forsvinder Margo, og Q dropper sin eksamen og sætter sig for at finde hende, død eller levende, ved at følge de spor, hun har efterladt ham. Paper Towns er bogen bag filmen af samme navn og dermed biograf-opfølgeren til En flænge i himlen. Pressen skrev: »Der bliver ikke leflet for den unge læser, det er filosofi i fiktionsform, men det tunge serveres med let humor, stigende spænding og rappe dialoger. Efter endt læsning sidder man – også som ældre ung – tilbage med en stille erkendelse af, at man er blevet en lille smule klogere på sig selv og sine anlæg for at klippe luftkasteller af pis og papir.« ***** - Merete Reinholdt, Berlingske »Velskrevet, vedkommende og indsigtsfuld ungdomsbog, der med humor og kant får alle til at tænke over hvem deres venner og kærester i virkeligheden er bag facaden.« - Christine Christensen, Lektør »Alt i alt var det en rigtig god læseoplevelse, og det er uden tvivl ikke sidste gang, jeg har læst bogen. Desuden gjorde den mig bare endnu mere hooked på Greens forfatterskab, og jeg kan slet ikke vente med at læse mere af ham.« **** - boghjørnet.dk »En forunderlig bog med en forunderlig hovedperson, som næsten ikke er til stede [...] en kinesisk æske, et mylder af tanker og indtryk, et storslået forsøg på at finde den røde tråd.« **** - Steffen Larsen, Politiken »En rigtig flot og tankevækkende roman, hvor meget er på spil.« - Kent Poulsen, Børn & Bøger »Greens prosa er enestående – fra vanvittig morsom, hyperintellektuel trash talk og slang, over kompleks filosofi, til overvældende observationer og sandheder. Han rammer plet – præcis hvordan ting føles, ser ud, påvirker – side efter side.« - School Library Journal »Green funderer over fantasiens og opfattelsesevnens interne samhørighed ... Han er ikke bare klog og vidunderlig sjov, men også dybt eftertænksom og indsigtsfuld.« - Booklist »Eminent! ... da jeg først kom ind i bogen var den fantastisk, og jeg slugte den rå på et par dage ... John Green beviste i "En flænge i himlen" og "Gåden om Alaska", at han må være en fantastisk forfatter. Ikke alene er han den eneste der fanger mig ved andre bøger end fantasy, han formår at få mig til at grine med sine fantastiske, sære og filosoferende sætninger.« 10/10 stjerner – bookeater.dk Pressen skriver: »Der bliver ikke leflet for den unge læser, det er filosofi i fiktionsform, men det tunge serveres med let humor, stigende spænding og rappe dialoger. Efter endt læsning sidder man – også som ældre ung – tilbage med en stille erkendelse af, at man er blevet en lille smule klogere på sig selv og sine anlæg for at klippe luftkasteller af pis og papir.« ***** - Merete Reinholdt, Berlingske »Velskrevet, vedkommende og indsigtsfuld ungdomsbog, der med humor og kant får alle til at tænke over hvem deres venner og kærester i virkeligheden er bag facaden.« - Christine Christensen, Lektør »Alt i alt var det en rigtig god læseoplevelse, og det er uden tvivl ikke sidste gang, jeg har læst bogen. Desuden gjorde den mig bare endnu mere hooked på Greens forfatterskab, og jeg kan slet ikke vente med at læse mere af ham.« **** - boghjørnet.dk »En forunderlig bog med en forunderlig hovedperson, som næsten ikke er til stede [...] en kinesisk æske, et mylder af tanker og indtryk, et storslået forsøg på at finde den røde tråd.« **** - Steffen Larsen, Politiken »En rigtig flot og tankevækkende roman, hvor meget er på spil.« - Kent Poulsen, Børn & Bøger »Greens prosa er enestående – fra vanvittig morsom, hyperintellektuel trash talk og slang, over kompleks filosofi, til overvældende observationer og sandheder. Han rammer plet – præcis hvordan ting føles, ser ud, påvirker – side efter side.« - School Library Journal »Green funderer over fantasiens og opfattelsesevnens interne samhørighed ... Han er ikke bare klog og vidunderlig sjov, men også dybt eftertænksom og indsigtsfuld.« - Booklist »Eminent! ... da jeg først kom ind i bogen var den fantastisk, og jeg slugte den rå på et par dage ... John Green beviste i "En flænge i himlen" og "Gåden om Alaska", at han må være en fantastisk forfatter. Ikke alene er han den eneste der fanger mig ved andre bøger end fantasy, han formår at få mig til at grine med sine fantastiske, sære og filosoferende sætninger.« 10/10 stjerner – bookeater.dk »Spændende og eftertænksom bog om venskab, kærlighed og mod.« ***** – pallesgavebod.dk
Reviews with the most likes.
So this is the last of John Green's books that I hadn't read. And it, like the others, boils down to much the same plot. Boy meets Girl, Girl affects Boy's life in a profound way, Boy loses Girl and has to deal with the changes she's wrought AND her absence. On one hand, I feel like Green needs to branch out and find a new plot, on the other hand, he writes this plot so well. And even within this plot he writes such different books. The Fault in Our Stars was slightly different, in that Girl lost Boy and had to deal with it. Unlike Looking For Alaska, in Paper Towns Girl didn't die, but Boy still lost her nonetheless. In Will Grayson, Will Grayson, the plot was changed to “Boy meets Boy, Boy changes Boy's world, Boy loses Boy and has to deal with the loss and the changes.” But in all fourbooks the protagonist winds up dealing with something John Green has mentioned repeatedly in his vlogbrothers videos: imagining people complexly.
What does that mean?
It means not making preconceived notions of what people are or how they think. That woman who was rude to you yesterday, she's a bitch, right? Instead of just deciding “well she's rude and mean” imagine her complexly. Maybe she has a migraine, maybe she overslept and her entire morning was a cascade of failure. Maybe she has a sick kid and an out-of-work husband at home and they're struggling to make ends meet on her minimum wage income. Imagine her complexly and you'll realize that she has problems of her own, and maybe what you interpreted as a rude, mean-spirited remark was simply a tired tone of voice from a stressed-out woman. Maybe she was rude, maybe she looked at you as simply someone in her way because she didn't imagine you complexly. Imagining people complexly is another way of saying “treat people like PEOPLE and not just bit players in your own little drama.” That can be a hard task when not everyone is doing it.
In Paper Towns, Margo Roth Spiegelman is an enigma, even to the boy who's been her neighbor for sixteen years and from whose perspective the book is written. She's been a different person to every person in high school, letting no one see the real Margo until she runs away and leaves a trail of clues for Quentin, her neighbor, to find. Quentin's had a crush on her since he was ten, but it's only in following her clues that he begins to see Margo as Margo, and not as the idea of Margo he had constructed.
It's an important lesson, and maybe the reason it shows up in all of John Green's books is because it is so incredibly important and yet so rare to find and so difficult to do. John talks about the concept in a speech he gave at the Alan Conference but the important part is here, I think:
“Let me tell you what is, in my opinion, the central problem of human existence: I am stuck in my body, in my consciousness, seeing out of my eyes. I am the only me I ever get to be, and so I am the only person I can imagine endlessly complexly. That's not the problem, actually. The problem is you. You are so busy taking in your own wondrousness that you can't be bothered to acknowledge mine.When I was a kid, I believed in an embarrassingly total way that I was the only human being in the world and that all the other people, including my brother and parents and everybody, was in fact an alien, and that the aliens had created the entire world to do a series of controlled experiments on how a human child—me—would respond to various forms of trial and tribulation. And when I wasn't around, they would take off their human costumes—the aliens had very advanced costuming technology, naturally—and they would do alien stuff. You know, go to the alien zoo and watch the alien local news and whatever else. I really believed this.And obviously, on some level, this indicated the kind of massively narcissistic worldview that would later require decades of therapy to adjust. But in a way, I was right. I am the only person whose existence I can directly attest to. By the way, when I've talked about this in the past I've seen people nodding, like they also believed in their childhoods that they were the only real person in the world, and I would imagine that right now, some such people are probably feeling the comfort we feel when we learn that our delusions are shared, that we are not alone even in our darkest corners.... I will acknowledge that you are all likely to be people. The probability that I am the only person in the world is extremely small—it is that number that infinitely approaches zero but isn't zero. And yet. On some level, I have to take it on faith that you are as complex as I am, that your pain and joy and grief are as real and as meaningful as my own.”
The entire speech is very much worth reading. John Green is extremely eloquent (as good writers must be!) and his perspectives on things are usually worth reading.
Interesting approach for a coming of age story. I enjoyed thinking through the clues with the main character. A reminder that life happens whether it is as planned or not.
My brain kept wanting to merge the enigmatic Margo with Alaska (a character from another John Green book).
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