It turns out that my criticizing Paper Towns for failing to give Margo any interiority was a bit like Publishers Weekly criticizing The Woman Upstairs for failing to make Nora a Nice Girl. I admit that the beginning of Paper Towns, while it did irritate me because of Margo’s apparent lack of interiority, also irritated me because Q’s parents are both therapists and it seemed like they were only therapists to amuse John Green by employing psychobabble in regular conversations. The whole: I was so unfair to John Green with the first part of this post, and I admit that now. So okay, John Green is mightily beloved of bloggers, and I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt while I finish this book. I flipped back a few pages to see if she at least gets to talk about what is happening inside her head, and the answer is that yes, she does. Q gets to kiss her at the end but she can never truly be his even though she likes him now. She’s not dead, not that anybody thought she was. The end (spoilers in this section only highlight blank spaces to see them): Good news. Note from the future in case you are curious: I was very wrong about all of this.

I am several chapters in now, and I feel that Margo Roth Spiegelman lacks interiority.

I do not remember Looking for Alaska all that well, but once the idea of John Green and Manic Pixie Dream Girls was introduced into my mind, it contaminated my reading of Paper Towns. Whiskey Jenny (who is a big fan of John Green, and whose copy of Paper Towns I stealth-borrowed when she was out of town) mentioned a recent discussion she had about John Green in which her interlocutor argued that Alaska of Looking for Alaska was too much of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Well, sadly, that is what’s happening to me with Paper Towns. Is there a term for that phenomenon where someone points out a flaw or irritation in a piece of media you had previously enjoyed, and thereafter you can’t watch it without thinking of that flaw or irritation, and it kind of spoils it for you? You’re too annoyed with it now, or you can’t take it seriously, or you’re annoyed with it and can’t take it seriously? There should be a word for that because it is a very real phenomenon. But she has left clues behind as to her whereabouts, and Q becomes determined to track her down. The following day, Margo Roth Spiegelman disappears. The beginning: In Paper Towns (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository), a band kid called Quentin gets summoned in the night to join in an eleven-part revenge crusade by his neighbor, the gorgeous and popular Margo Roth Spiegelman, whose boyfriend (it turns out) has cheated on her with her best friend.

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