Quentin (Q) Jacobsen has been in love with his neighbor Margo Roth Spiegelman since childhood. Once upon a time, the children were friends, but as they grew older, their characters and interests began to change. Margot and Q were too different, their paths diverged. The main character is still in love, but does not dare to resume communication.

The prom is approaching, which Q has no intention of going to. A few weeks before this event, life young man has changed dramatically. One day Margot climbs into his room through the window. The girl asks for help to take revenge on her enemies. Q readily agrees. The next day it becomes known that Margot has disappeared. Neither friends nor parents know what caused her disappearance. Only Quentin finds some messages left by his friend and goes to look for her.

Most of the book is devoted to the search for the main character. For many readers, the last chapter turned out to be a mystery. Only one thing remains clear - Q and Margot are too different to link their destinies.

Characteristics

Q Jacobsen

The author notes that the main characters once had some similarities, which allowed them to be friends. Gradually, Q turned into a boring young man, busy exclusively with his studies. To emphasize the difference between the characters, the author makes Q exaggeratedly positive. A shy teenager lives an uninteresting, gray life, monitors his progress at school, and refuses to participate in public events. His only entertainment was computer games.

Quentin never stopped loving Margot. In his fantasies, he sees himself next to this girl. Wherein main character does not insist on making your dreams come true. His fantasies are more like Feature Film, where the story ends with the union of lovers. Future life remains somewhere behind the scenes.

Seeing no future with Margot, Q tries to imagine his life without her. He will certainly receive a decent education at a prestigious college and become a lawyer. Quentin will marry a decent girl and live like hundreds of other middle-class Americans. The adventure that Margo persuades him to take becomes a hope that life can still flow in a different direction. However, after going through a long search, Q realizes that the girl he loved was completely different from what he imagined her to be. Quentin ascribed qualities to Margot that she did not have, ignoring what she actually had. He loved the image, not real person.

Despite some disappointments, Q's little adventure is not a waste of time. The girl he loved made him see life outside the usual world and understand that not everything can be planned. Improvisations make our lives brighter and richer.

main character appears to others as a bright, attractive and the most popular girl in her school. She loves to break rules because she believes that no rules really exist. People invented them to somehow organize their everyday life. Rules are needed only to justify your routine. Their observance is proof that a person lives “like everyone else.” normal people».

Even in her childhood, Margot thought a lot about life. The reality around her seems like paper. Parents, acquaintances, relatives and friends seem to be running in circles. Life is too fleeting to waste it on boredom. But no one wants to stop and think.

The main character is not just an individualist. She's a real egocentric. She sees everyone around her as stereotyped, as if they came off an assembly line. They all want the same thing. Men dream of their own home, car, exemplary family and a dizzying career. Young girls want to get married successfully so that they can take care of financial well-being on my husband's shoulders. Margot considers herself different from everyone else. She is special and does not intend to devote her life to routine. The girl takes radical steps to rid herself of a gray future.

main idea

The author tries to cast doubt on the generally accepted rules of “real” life. Is it really necessary to adapt your life to general concepts about happiness? There are probably some alternatives. To find your path, you need to follow your heart.

Analysis of the work

Novel " Paper cities», summary which talks about the transformation inner world heroes, many readers call a book for teenagers. However, this is not entirely true.

Readership
The main characters of the novel are American teenagers. But we should not forget that exactly the same people with similar thoughts can live in other countries. Plus, they don't have to be teenagers. Every thirty-year-old man and every forty-year-old woman was once an eighteen-year-old boy and girl.

They were probably also dissatisfied with the world and tried to build their lives so that it would not be like the life of their parents. As they get older, young people begin to understand that not everything is as simple as they once thought. Probably, the parents also dreamed of more, but could not achieve it.

Q and Margot are equally dissatisfied with reality, with the city in which they live. But each of them struggles with their discontent in their own way. Q is trying to be " good boy" Realizing the impossibility of building his happiness with Margot, he imposes dreams on himself: studying at a prestigious college, stable, although not very interesting job, home. Quentin ignores the inner emptiness and dissatisfaction he experiences as he replays the series of his future life in his mind.

Margot does not want to put up with the inevitable routine. She must get rid of her by any means necessary. The girl constantly tries to stand out from the crowd, behaves extravagantly, and at times even indecently. But this is not enough for her to be different from others. Margot leaves home to find herself, to once again become the center of everyone's attention and distinguish herself from her peers. This is how the path of many began famous people.

Not all readers know that the title of the novel is a term. Paper cities are non-existent settlements marked on a map. In the novel, this term received new meanings. On the one hand, paper cities are settlements similar to those in which the main characters live. In this way, the author tries to emphasize the artificiality and unnaturalness of the life of ordinary people, mired in routine. People heat paper houses with their own future, says the author. The purpose of this metaphor is to show that most of us are willing to burn our dreams just to keep ourselves warm in the present. Paper cities also symbolize the ethereal illusions that the main characters of the novel are prone to. One spark of common sense is enough for the paper to burst into flames, and all that remains of a bright, alluring dream is a handful of ashes.

John Green

Paper cities

With gratitude to Julie Strauss-Gabel, without whom none of this would have happened.

Then we went outside and saw that she had already lit a candle; I really liked the face she carved out of the pumpkin: from a distance it seemed like sparks were sparkling in her eyes.

“Halloween”, Katrina Vandenberg, from the collection “Atlas”.

They say that a friend cannot destroy a friend.

What do they know about it?

From a song by the Mountain Goats.

My opinion is this: some miracle happens to every person in life. Well, that is, of course, it is unlikely that I will be struck by lightning or receive a Nobel Prize, or become a dictator small people, living on some island in Pacific Ocean, or I’ll catch incurable terminal ear cancer, or I’ll suddenly combust spontaneously. But, if you look at all these extraordinary phenomena together, most likely, at least something unlikely happens to everyone. I, for example, could get caught in a rain of frogs. Or land on Mars. To marry Queen of England or hanging out alone at sea for several months, on the verge of life and death. But something else happened to me. Among all the many residents of Florida, I happened to be Margot Roth Spiegelman's neighbor.

Jefferson Park, where I live, used to be a Navy base. But then it was no longer needed, and the land was returned to the ownership of the municipality of Orlando, Florida, and a huge residential area was built on the site of the base, because that’s how it’s used now free land. And in the end, my parents and Margot’s parents bought houses in the neighborhood as soon as the construction of the first buildings was completed. Margot and I were two years old at the time.

Even before Jefferson Park became Pleasantville, even before it became a Navy base, it actually belonged to one Jefferson, or rather, Dr. Jefferson Jefferson. An entire school in Orlando was named after Dr. Jefferson Jefferson, and there is also a large one. Charitable organization his name, but the most interesting thing is that Dr. Jefferson Jefferson was not any “doctor”: incredible, but true. He sold orange juice all his life. And then he suddenly became rich and became an influential man. And then he went to court and changed his name: he put “Jefferson” in the middle, and wrote down the word “doctor” as the first name. And try to object.

So, Margot and I were nine. Our parents were friends, so she and I sometimes played together, riding our bikes past dead-end streets into Jefferson Park itself, the main attraction of our area.

When they told me that Margot would come soon, I was always terribly worried, because I considered her the most divine of God's creatures in the entire history of mankind. That very morning she was wearing white shorts and a pink T-shirt with a green dragon with orange sparkles coming out of its mouth. Now it’s difficult to explain why this T-shirt seemed so amazing to me that day.

Margot rode her bike standing, her straight arms clutching the steering wheel and her whole body hanging over it, her purple sneakers sparkling. It was in March, but the heat was already as hot as in a steam room. The sky was clear, but there was a sour taste in the air, indicating that a storm might break out in a while.

At that time, I fancied myself an inventor, and when Margot and I, having abandoned our bikes, went to the playground, I began to tell her that I was developing a “ringolator,” that is, a giant cannon that could shoot large colored stones, launching them circle around the Earth so that here we can become like on Saturn. (I still think it would be cool, but making a cannon that would launch stones into Earth orbit turns out to be quite difficult.)

I often visited this park and knew every corner of it well, so I soon felt that something strange had happened to this world, although I did not immediately notice what it was. exactly has changed in him.

Quentin,” Margot said quietly and calmly.

She was pointing somewhere with her finger. That's when I saw What not this way.

A few steps in front of us was an oak tree. Thick, knobby, terribly old. He always stood here. There was a platform on the right. She didn't show up today either. But there, leaning against a tree trunk, sat a man in a gray suit. He didn't move. This is what I saw for the first time. And a pool of blood spilled around him. Blood flowed from the mouth, although the stream had almost dried up. The man opened his mouth strangely. Flies sat quietly on his pale forehead.

I took two steps back. I remember that for some reason it seemed to me that if I suddenly made some sudden movement, he might wake up and attack me. What if it's a zombie? At that age I already knew that they don’t exist, but this dead man really looked like he might come to life at any moment.

And while I was taking these two steps back, Margot just as slowly and carefully stepped forward.

His eyes are open,” she stated.

“We have to go back home,” I answered.

I thought they were dying with eyes closed, - she did not let up.

Margon needs to go home and tell her parents.

She took another step forward. If she reached out her hand now, she could touch his leg.

What do you think happened to him? - she asked. - Maybe drugs or something like that.

I didn’t want to leave Margot alone with a corpse that could come to life and rush at her at any moment, but I also wasn’t able to stay there and discuss the circumstances of his death in the smallest detail. I plucked up my courage, stepped forward and grabbed her hand.

Margonado come home now!

“Okay, fine,” she agreed.

We ran to the bikes, my breath was taken away as if with delight, only it was not delight. We sat down, and I let Margot go ahead because I was bursting into tears and didn’t want her to see it. The soles of her purple sneakers were stained with blood. His blood. This dead guy.

And then we went home. My parents called 911, sirens blared in the distance, I asked permission to look at the cars, my mother refused. Then I went to bed.

My mom and dad are psychotherapists, so, by definition, I don’t have psychological problems. When I woke up, my mother and I had a long conversation about the life expectancy of a person, that death is also part of the life cycle, but at the age of nine I don’t have to think much about this phase, in general, I felt better. Honestly, I’ve never really thought about this topic. This says a lot, because in principle I know how to drive.

Please register or login to leave a review. Registration will take no more than 15 seconds.

ValeryPierse

May Greene's fans forgive me.

The book tells how Margot Roth Spiegelmann one day disappeared, and Q, who lives next door, makes desperate attempts to find her.

Probably the main reason why this book caused only negative emotions became the author's previous book entitled "Looking for Alaska". Both here and there we see the relationship between a guy and a girl, but Margot and Alaska are similar in character, like two peas in a pod, the same with the main ones male characters, their hobbies are different, but they are definitely in love with a girl and they need to get to the bottom of the truth, what happened to their loved ones. In "Looking for Alaska" this secret is revealed in such a way that the heart sank a little, then... Well, well... Margot left on her own, everything turns out to be fine with her, and, it turns out, there was no need to look for her.

The only positive aspects of the book for me were the meeting of Margot and Q, their pranks on the night of her disappearance and the story itself about paper towns.

Helpful review?

/

1 / 0

Elena Arkhipova

The very dynamic first and third parts go well with the second, which prepares and forces you to follow not the actions of the heroes, but their thoughts. I really liked how Quentin gradually, step by step, tried to understand Margot.

The first and third parts are absolutely crazy, unexpected, painfully hitting you in the face and, oh gods, I just love them for something that will never happen in my life. The second, intermediate part is different. Just as Quentin slowly understands Margot, so she, the heroine, fully reveals herself to us, being outside the framework of the narrative. And I want to call Margot one of the best modern heroines, because she is amazing.

The middle of the book sags a little, but I still read to the end and did not regret it at all. It was incredibly interesting to look at the main character's friends. Some moments made me smile, some made me think, because a huge number of correct thoughts were expressed, for example, the same conversation between Quentin and Radar after graduation does not hide a sharp and truthful moral - you should not expect people to behave the way you would behave yourself in their place.

The last scene with Margot and Quentin made the callous stone of my soul tremble, especially the moment with the buried diary, this is an unequivocal farewell to the past. However, experiencing the whole story through Quentin's eyes and feeling how he changes, I was glad at the end to learn that he exceeded Margot's expectations.

A wonderful book, and recognizing the moments in the trailer was incredibly exciting.

I plan to download the film when it comes out and watch it, and based on the reviews, I expect an extremely pleasant experience.

Helpful review?

/

3 / 0

Mariashka_true

And it's all?

I picked up this book based only on its popularity, awards and a brand new film broadcast in all cinemas. I was introduced to the upcoming plot from the novel's annotation... and realized: yes, this is what I love so much! Mysteries, disappearances, searches, an action-packed storyline full of surprises. Not so.

The book is about the supposedly daring and popular girl Margot and her quiet neighbor Q. They don’t communicate closely, they only played together as children in the same sandbox, so to speak. But Q has been secretly and at a distance in love with Margot for many years, although he only watches her from the side. Who does he love? For what? Why? This is not clear to me. But nevertheless, this is where it all begins. Margot first shows up at a neighbor’s house, entices him into hooligan adventures, and the next day disappears from the life of not only this boy, but the entire city.

Next, a fascinating detective story was to develop. But the plot of the investigation is simply made up, the characters are uninteresting, and “Margot Roth Spiegelmann” begins to make you feel nauseous, so often is this phrase repeated on every page. I have never come across books before in which literally everything revolves around one character, and even so uninteresting, absent-minded and flat.

The ending is a total failure.

Overall, the book is a disappointment. Maybe I expected too much from her. Sorry to those who liked this creation - it's boiling.

Bottom line. It is indicated that the novel is for teenagers. Yes, it is for teenagers and nothing more. This is my subjective opinion.

Helpful review?

/

Quentin (Q) Jacobsen has been in love with his neighbor Margo Roth Spiegelman since childhood. Once upon a time, the children were friends, but as they grew older, their characters and interests began to change. Margot and Q were too different, their paths diverged. The main character is still in love, but does not dare to resume communication.

The prom is approaching, which Q has no intention of going to. A few weeks before this event, the young man’s life changed dramatically. One day Margot climbs into his room through the window. The girl asks for help to take revenge on her enemies. Q readily agrees. The next day it becomes known that Margot has disappeared. Neither friends nor parents know what caused her disappearance. Only Quentin finds some messages left by his friend and goes to look for her.

Most of the book is devoted to the search for the main character. For many readers, the last chapter turned out to be a mystery. Only one thing remains clear - Q and Margot are too different to link their destinies.

Characteristics

Q Jacobsen

The author notes that the main characters once had some similarities, which allowed them to be friends. Gradually, Q turned into a boring young man, busy exclusively with his studies. To emphasize the difference between the characters, the author makes Q exaggeratedly positive. A shy teenager lives an uninteresting, gray life, monitors his progress at school, and refuses to participate in public events. His only entertainment was computer games.

Quentin never stopped loving Margot. In his fantasies, he sees himself next to this girl. At the same time, the main character does not insist on making his dreams come true. His fantasies are more like a feature film, where the story ends with the union of lovers. Further life remains somewhere behind the scenes.

Seeing no future with Margot, Q tries to imagine his life without her. He will certainly receive a decent education at a prestigious college and become a lawyer. Quentin will marry a decent girl and live like hundreds of other middle-class Americans. The adventure that Margo persuades him to take becomes a hope that life can still flow in a different direction. However, after going through a long search, Q realizes that the girl he loved was completely different from what he imagined her to be. Quentin ascribed qualities to Margot that she did not have, ignoring what she actually had. He loved the image, not the real person.

Despite some disappointments, Q's little adventure is not a waste of time. The girl he loved made him see life outside the usual world and understand that not everything can be planned. Improvisations make our lives brighter and richer.

The main character appears to others as a bright, attractive and the most popular girl in her school. She loves to break rules because she believes that no rules really exist. People invented them to somehow organize their everyday life. Rules are needed only to justify your routine. Their observance is proof that a person lives “like all normal people.”

Even in her childhood, Margot thought a lot about life. The reality around her seems like paper. Parents, acquaintances, relatives and friends seem to be running in circles. Life is too fleeting to waste it on boredom. But no one wants to stop and think.

The main character is not just an individualist. She's a real egocentric. She sees everyone around her as stereotyped, as if they came off an assembly line. They all want the same thing. Men dream of their own home, car, exemplary family and a dizzying career. Young girls want to get married successfully in order to shift the concern for financial well-being onto the shoulders of their husbands. Margot considers herself different from everyone else. She is special and does not intend to devote her life to routine. The girl takes radical steps to rid herself of a gray future.

main idea

The author tries to cast doubt on the generally accepted rules of “real” life. Do you really need to adjust your life to general concepts of happiness? There are probably some alternatives. To find your path, you need to follow your heart.

Analysis of the work

The novel "Paper Towns", a brief summary of which tells about the transformation of the inner world of the characters, is called by many readers a book for teenagers. However, this is not entirely true.

Readership
The main characters of the novel are American teenagers. But we should not forget that exactly the same people with similar thoughts can live in other countries. Plus, they don't have to be teenagers. Every thirty-year-old man and every forty-year-old woman was once an eighteen-year-old boy and girl.

They were probably also dissatisfied with the world and tried to build their lives so that it would not be like the life of their parents. As they get older, young people begin to understand that not everything is as simple as they once thought. Probably, the parents also dreamed of more, but could not achieve it.

Q and Margot are equally dissatisfied with reality, with the city in which they live. But each of them struggles with their discontent in their own way. Q tries to be a "good boy". Realizing the impossibility of building his happiness with Margot, he imposes dreams on himself: studying at a prestigious college, a stable, although not very interesting job, a home. Quentin ignores the inner emptiness and dissatisfaction he experiences as he replays the series of his future life in his mind.

Margot does not want to put up with the inevitable routine. She must get rid of her by any means necessary. The girl constantly tries to stand out from the crowd, behaves extravagantly, and at times even indecently. But this is not enough for her to be different from others. Margot leaves home to find herself, to once again become the center of everyone's attention and distinguish herself from her peers. This is how the path of many famous people began.

Not all readers know that the title of the novel is a term. Paper cities are non-existent settlements marked on a map. In the novel, this term received new meanings. On the one hand, paper cities are settlements similar to those in which the main characters live. In this way, the author tries to emphasize the artificiality and unnaturalness of the life of ordinary people, mired in routine. People heat paper houses with their own future, says the author. The purpose of this metaphor is to show that most of us are willing to burn our dreams just to keep ourselves warm in the present. Paper cities also symbolize the ethereal illusions that the main characters of the novel are prone to. One spark of common sense is enough for the paper to burst into flames, and all that remains of a bright, alluring dream is a handful of ashes.

. July 23rd another film adaptation of his novel is coming out, and "Paper Towns" are the basis of the future tape.

https://youtu.be/rC2HPFBvWjE

• Name: Paper cities
• Original title: Paper Towns
• John Green
• Genre: Youth Romance, Romance, Detective
• Year: 2008

The plot centers on a rather mediocre schoolboy Q Jacobsen, who does not strive to be in the center of everyone's attention, content with a mediocre existence. He prefers routine and computer games to bright adventures. But everything changes when one night there is a knock on his window. Margo Roth Spiegelman- the sassy girl who lives next door, with whom Q is head over heels in love. Margot invites him to take part in a “punitive operation,” and this night becomes the brightest adventure of his life for the guy. But in the morning Margot disappears, and Q decides to find the girl at all costs, fortunately she left behind a chain of clues, after unraveling the secret of which, Q will be able to find Margot.

In general, the plot is quite prosaic and non-trivial, but the works John Green This is not why they are valuable. IN "Paper Towns" You won’t find the drama and emotional level that was present in , however, the book is just perfect for its audience. It reads easily and naturally. Vivid characters and dynamic events skillfully hold the reader's attention, allowing you to spend a cozy evening, following the development of events and trying, together with Q, to find a solution to Margot's mysterious messages.

In some moments, however, there are rather naive scenes with very strange actions of the main characters. But considering target audience works, this drawback can easily be considered an advantage. Readers school age It will be really interesting to follow the plot.

In addition, the book contains a large amount of humor and very successful comparisons, in the spirit of the author! In the process of reading, every now and then an involuntary smile arises, and some moments I want to read out loud. And this happens quite often. At the same time, the narrative also raises social issues (as indicated by the title of the book in the context of the plot). Are material things important in a person’s life? Should we strive to achieve illusory conventions imposed by society? The work leaves these questions open so that the reader can draw the necessary conclusion for himself.

• Targeted mainly at teenage audiences
• Presence of illogical situations
• Sometimes strange behavior characters

Validity of expectation:7 0%