book 4

Paper Towns

by John Green

This novel is about Quentin, an average teenage boy, who searches for Margo, an adventurous girl, when she was missing. He thought she knew who Margo really is but during the search, he realizes that he have never known Margo. His life was centered on her that when she was gone, he discovered there are more things that matters, his friendship to Ben and Radar. This story conveys about friendship, adventure and how one can really see and know a person.

Discussion Leader: Chinny Grace G. Oraiz

1. In your opinion, do you think Margo chose the right decision on staying at Agloe? Why?

ð  Yes, it is a good decision because she just wants to be real not only to herself but also to the people around her. She does not want to be a paper girl anymore that leaving Jefferson Park is the only way to be real. And in the first place, she will not leave their town if she and her parents are in good terms. I and Sheila have the same thoughts regarding this while the others disagreed for they think that Margo became selfish.

    

2. If you were Margo, would you also leave Jefferson Park? Why?

ð  My answer is the same in the first question, I will leave Jefferson Park in order to find the real me but I will say my decision to my family and friends so they will not have to worry about me. Some again, disagreed to us.

3. Do you believe that Margo didn't want Q to come after her?

ð  Yes, I strongly believe that Margo did not want Q to follow her. First, it was explained in the novel and second, if she really wanted Q to come for her, she had left easier clues. Why make it difficult? Some said that Margo somehow wanted Q to follow her.

4. At the end part of the novel, Q thinks that he had been creating a fake image of Margo. Do you consider Margo as a Papergirl? Why?

ð  Margo was a paper girl because she acts what other people wants her to be. But she is not really a paper girl for she left Jefferson Park to be real. We all agreed that she is not a paper girl.

5. If you were Lacey, would you also come to find Margo? Why?

ð Yes I would certainly come for Margo for she is my best friend and I will prove to her that she had misjudged me. We all agreed that we will do the same.

Passage Picker: Maricris Santos

1. "Doing stuff never feels good as you hope it will." (Page 29, chapter 4)

If we are doing anything we are expecting the best outcome for it. But in reality what we are hoping for does not really happen, sometimes it comes least or better than we hope and expected it to be. So for me, we should be ready for the outcome of all the things we are doing. And we should things happily and enjoy every moment of it, because if you are enjoying it, you will be happy and content whatever the outcome would be.

2. "That’s always ridiculous to me, that people would want to be around someone because they're pretty. It's like picking your breakfast cereals based on color instead of taste." (Page 29, chapter 4)

I agree with Quentin when he said this line because we choose our friends or someone we want to be with not by their pretty face but by their attitudes. The face of the person is not important, what you will do with the pretty face if the attitude of that person is not as pretty as the face. It is also the attitude that we accept not the pretty face.

3. "...you gotta stop looking up at the sky, or one of these days you'll look back and see that you floated away, too." (Page 94, chapter 19)

For me, this passage means that we should not let the situations or problems take us away from our lives. We should not let the problems refrain us from doing the things we usually do. We should immediately face our problems and not let it stay in our lives for a long time. And we not should use these problems to quit but we should rather use it as a motivation to live our life in a better way and make us a better person.

4. "...the pleasure isn't in doing things; the pleasure is in planning it.” (Page 142, chapter 29)

Planning in doing things can give us more pleasure than actually doing it because in planning you can do what you want. And sometimes the things we planned do not really happened when put into action. We usually get overwhelmed when we plan that's why there are many things we want to do that we think we can accomplish, but some of us cannot really do it due to some circumstances.

5. "...the way you think about a person isn't the way they actually are." (Page 158, hour twelve)

I agree with this passage because sometimes we tend to believe and judge the person based on what is being shown to us or what we see. We cannot really judge the person if we don't know his real attitudes and the story behind his actions. Then if we totally knew him we will be surprise to discover new things about him and to know that he is a different person from what we believe and know.

ð  I like the passages that the picker picked. There are many passages in the book that I like. Some of the passages are not in here but I still like what she choose. I still like it especially the book. It is a job well done for the passage picker.

Connector: Johanna Ariexia S. Quilinderino

As I read the story it immediately popped in my mind that somehow Margo was my alter ego when it comes to her relationship with her parents. Though not as dramatic as her but there are some instances that I am becoming a “paper daughter” to my parents. I only show them what they wanted me to show them. And act like the daughter they wanted me to be. My parents are both teachers. So both spent most of their entire life educating those students they barely knew. However, I understand that being a teacher is actually a heavy duty to engage in. It means becoming the second parents to hundreds of kids yearly. So looking at the bright side, it means having hundreds of siblings but in line with this is the fact that there is a need for me to catch their attention.  But as far as I am concerned my parents mostly never fails to provide the things I needed physically and emotionally so despite of the lapses and missing pieces, as time passes by, I learned that no matter what the circumstance may be I know there is someone at my back ready to catch me if I fall and that is my parents.

ð  I like the connection of the connector. She really relates it to the story. She showed how she becomes a paper girl like Margo. But she is different to Margo for her family always supports and loves her.

Character Captain: Angel May S. Bagaforo

Characters:

Quentin “Q” Jacobsen – the narrator and the protagonist of the story

Margo Roth Spiegelman – the neighbor of Q that they are searching for

Ben Starling – one of the best friends of Q and his opposite

Marcus “Radar” – also one of the best friends of Q and the smartest among them

Lacey Pemberton – she is one of the best friends of Margo

Chuck Parson – he bullied Q when they were still children

Rebecca “Becca” Arrington –she is one of the best friends of Margo who betrayed her for having a relationship to his ex-boyfriend, Jase. She has also done bad things like making the story of Bloody Ben.

Jason “Jase” Worthington –he was the ex-boyfriend of Margo and he betrayed Margo for having an affair with Becca.

Tom Jacobsen –he is the father of Q

Connie Jacobsen –she is the mother of Q

Detective Otis Warren –he was the inspector that Mr. and Mrs. Spiegelman hired to find Margo

Angela –the girlfriend of Radar

Debbie Spiegelman –the irresponsible mother of Margo

Mr. Spiegelman –the father of Margo

Jasper Hanson

Taddy Mac

Clint Bauer

Myrna Mountweazel –this is the dog of the father of Margo and it dislikes her very much

Ruthie Spiegelman –the younger sister of Margo

Frank –a friend of Q

Gus –the guard at the SunTrust Building

Main Characters:

Quentin “Q” Jacobsen

Coward

He is coward because he is afraid of the unknown, of what will happen next. He is resistant to the things that are complicated and do not want to be involve to it. He does not like trouble for it leads to complications. Margo also said that ‘You’re a very anxious person, Q.’ (28) because he always avoided difficulties. Even when they were little, Margo was the brave one and he was the scaredy-cat. ‘As I took two steps back, Margo took equally small and quiet steps forward.’ (12) Margo also admitted that he made Q go to the abandoned mall so he can beat his fear.

Consistent

He is the type of boy who is steady. He just goes with the flow. He is a chill person for whatever he does, he is always relaxed. He is an average teenage boy who likes being consistent on everything that he does,‘I like the consistency.’ (166) He also likes boredom, ‘I never found boredom boring.’ (85) He is always late that he is unaffected of it, ‘I was late, but then again, I was always late.’ (58) He likes his routine every day. He likes going late to school, hating math subject, waiting outside the band room after their class then going home and playing Resurrection. ‘I liked routine.’ (22) He always does the things he always did,‘Such was that morning. Nothing really mattered that much, not the good things and not the bad ones. We were in the business of mutual amusement, and we were reasonably prosperous.’ (19) Whatever he does, he is always consistent. He wanted to know Margo more that he always tries to find her.

Selfish

He only thought of himself and not of his friends. When Margo was gone, he looked for him and he forgot about his friends. One day, when he was searching for Margo, Ben told him that he should come to the house of Radar for his family won the Guinness World Book for the most plenty collection of Black Santas. Q did not want to go that Ben told him that he knows that he is searching for Margo but they are there. They are not missing that he should also make time for them. He also said that ‘I’m asking you to come to a party with your two best friends who you have known for half of your life.’ (131) He wants Q to realize that Margo is missing but they are not. They are there and they need him. He just always thinks of Margo because she is important to him that he forgets his friends.

Margo Roth Spiegelman

Enigmatic

In their town, Margo is known to be a mysterious person. For Quentin she is mysterious for she has secrets and interests that he never knew she likes like music and poetry. For him, Margo loves mysteries that she turned out to be one. ‘Margo always loved mysteries. And everything that come afterward. I could never stop thinking that maybe she loved mysteries so much that she became one.’ (14)Then, she became more mysterious when she was gone. When she left Jefferson Park for nobody knows her reason why she did such thing is. Even her parents did not know why she left their town. She always leaves clues whenever she goes, like she left a Minnie Mouse in her bed when she went to Disney Land. ‘The clues.The stupid clues. But you can never follow them anywhere, trust me.’ (68) Because she loves clues, Q thought that he left some clue for him because she wants Q to follow him. But he was wrong.

For the people in Jefferson Park, she is mysterious because she always liked adventures and mysteries. ‘She’s somewhere by herself having the kind of fun we can only imagine.’ (62) But Q later realized that she is not mysterious. She is just a planner, ‘Margo as a planner.’ (140) and she loves planning ‘that’s the kind of thing she likes to imagine herself doing, the kind of thing she likes to plan.’ (145) She also said to Q that planning gives her the pleasure, not the adventure. ‘The pleasure isn’t in doing the thing; the pleasure is in planning it.’ (145)She is really not a mysterious person, she just loves planning.

Exceptional

She is different to the people leaving in Jefferson Park for they see her as a cool, hot chick who like mysteries. She is also popular at their school. She is always an exception to them for they thought she is doing what she wants to do in her life. She has also an exceptional beauty, ‘Margo’s beauty was a kind of sealed vessel of perfection –uncracked and uncrackable.’ (37) Especially for Quentin, she is exceptional,‘My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman.’ (11) He always sees her awesome neighbor. ‘It wasn’t even that she was so pretty. She was just so awesome, and in literal sense.’ (17) Whenever she makes adventures, everyone likes and believes it,‘Margo Roth Spiegelman, whose stories of epic adventures would blow through school like a summer storm.’ (17) She also likes random capitalization. ‘Yeah. I’m a big believer in random capitalization. The rules of capitalization are son unfair to words in the middle.’ (27) She is different to the girls living in the Jefferson Park for she is gorgeous, cool and she is always being Margo. Her mannerism in random capitalization is so unique that it was the reason why Q found out that she was in Agloe.

Real

Margo said that she is a paper girl, living in a paper town. ‘I didn’t really look down and think about how everything was made of paper. I looked down and thought about how I was made of paper.’ (177) For her, she is a paper girl for she did what other people wants her to do. ‘Because it’s kind of great, being an idea that everybody likes. But I could never be the idea to myself, not all the way.’ (177) Everybody likes its idea that she also became one, ‘People love the idea of a paper girl. They always have. And the worst thing is that I loved it, too. I cultivated it, you know?’ (177) For Margo, Jefferson Park is a fake place for it was lived by fake people. That you can only see it’s fakeness if you looked at it closely. It is full of paper girls and boys.

‘Here’s what’s not beautiful about it: from here, you can’t see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place really is. You see how fake it all is. It’s not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It’s a paper town. I mean look at it, Q: look at all those cul-de-sacs, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail.And all the people, too. I’ve lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters.’ (41)

She left Jefferson Park and went to Agloe.‘A paper town for a paper girl.’(177)It is a real paper town where she can be real. ‘And Agloe is a place where a paper creation became real. A dot on the map became a real place, more real than the people who created the dot could ever have imagined. I thought maybe the paper cutout of a girl could start becoming real here also.’ (177) for her, Agloe is the only place where she can be real.

Everyone who knew Margo really thought they knew her, especially Q. ‘And maybe this was what I needed to do above all. I needed to discover what Margo was like when she wasn’t being Margo.’ (108) He realized that he really doesn’t know Margo. ‘I’d seen and mis-seen Margo.’ (109)During their search, he thought he finally understand Margo, ‘Not the Margo I had expected her to be. Not being the Margo I thought I had finally imagined to be.’ (172) but he was wrong. But in the end, he realized that the reason why he had not seen the real Margo is because he eliminated the fact that Margo is just a human. ‘Margo Roth Spiegelman was a person, too.’ (124)She feels pain, loneliness, anger and depression. That she feels what everybody feels. ‘Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventurer. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl.’ (124) Quentin realized that he saw the real Margo when he looked at his weaknesses. Margo was a paper girl but she proves that she is a real person when she left Jefferson Park and went to Agloe.

Minor Characters:

Ben Starling

Real

He is the reverse of Quentin. He is seeing what Q is missing. He always says what he wants to say. He can see what Q cannot. He always says what he wants to say. He understands that he is searching for Margo and but Ben wants Q to understand that they are there and Margo is not. He is real for he always says what he is feeling, not only intellectual but also emotional.

Merry

He always makes ridiculous jokes and he is the most cheerful person in their group. He is a jocular person. He is a positive person. He likes to joke around and make naughty comments. Because he is a cheerful person, he tends to have naughty jokes especially about his balls.

Selfless

He always makes decisions that he benefited not only him but also his friends. One of the situations that show this is when he saved the lives of Quentin, Radar and Lacey. He said that he did not planned to save them, he just saved himself. He keeps on insisting that reason but his friends know that he wanted to save them, not only himself.

Marcus “Radar”

Intelligent

He is good at computer and he is one of the editors at Omnictionary, a search page that is the same as a Wikipedia. He’s good at analysis and at computing. He always analyzesthe situation so he can find solutions. He uses his mind in making decisions and he always weigh things.

Honest

Radar says things that are needed to be heard, especially by Ben and Quentin. He is always fair on his judgment towards Ben and Quentin. He knows that they are dis-alike but he never chooses only one side. He explains to Q that there are things that he likes and dislikes about him also to Ben. He explains that he likes them for being them.

Reliable

Whenever Q needs him, he is always on the go. He is always there whenever a friend needs him. Even though he still has a hangover, because he drank do much after the prom, he still went to the house of Q when he asked if he could come. Whenever Q ask him if he could give advises, he always gives the most sensitive and the most needed answers.

Lacey

Loyal

In the first part of the story, Margo sent Lacey a fish because she thought she knew about the secret relationship of Rebecca and Jase. Lacey joined Quentin’s search for Margo so she can prove to Margo that what she thinks is incorrect.

Caring

She always cares to her love ones especially on Margo and Ben. She always cares for them. She also cares for Q when she asks if he is alright after the accident. She cares to the people around her.

Supportive

She always supports Ben whatever decisions he makes. And he supports Q when he finds Margo.

ð  This is my assigned task for this book. Honestly, I really don’t want to be a character captain but I as I made my task, I really love what I did. It is like knowing the characters more and knowing the deeper meaning of the story.

Artistic Adventurer: Sheila Almarie G. Daguman

On Her Exit

Nobody knows

The mystery of your exit

It was sudden

And unexpected event

We still have an adventure

The night before your departure

Now I feel an absence

And I am missing your presence

So I looked for you

By tracing your clues

Then I found you

In the outskirts of Agloe

Oh! How good the destiny was

Because it reunited us.

ð  I find the poem funny because it is rhyme but it has a sense. But it is nice because it tells the how Quentin felt when Margo was gone. I like it.

Word enricher: CahraKincel E. Lipay

1.      Felony-serious crime punishable by a heavy sentence. (p.23)

“I swear to God that you will not be asked to commit a felony.”

2.       Deign-condescend (p.36)

“God knows Lacey Pemberton would never deign to have me over.”

                 

3.       Obfuscation- obscure (p.129)

“It was dishonest to act like Margo hadn’t participated in her own obfuscation.”

4.       Cacophonous-harsh or discordant sound (p.110)

“Maybe she had sat here in the cacophonous darkness.”

5.      Douche-disgusting person (p.113)

“You’re a douche.”

ð  I find this work very depressing. As a former vocabulary enricher, I did my best in making the words useful and its significance. The enricher in this book just copied the sentence in the book and made her definition. For me, it lacks some of its elements. But I really don’t blame the enricher for she said that she did not know what to do and it is not her fault that I’m expecting more from here.

Summarizer: Merwilyn P. Bagatua

The story began in Jefferson Park, a subdivision in Orlando, Florida. One day, the narrator, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen and his neighbor, Margo Roth Spiegelman were biking on the park. They discovered a corpse of a man named Robert Joyner, who committed suicide. The novel then flashed forward and they have grown apart. They are already high school students and have their own circle of friends. Margo has a boyfriend, named Jase. Q's friends are Radar and Ben. One night Margo showed up on his bedroom that was dressed like a ninja and convinced him to sneak out using his car to have revenge from those people who have hurt her.

These people are Jase, Becca and Lacey. Jase was cheating on her and the Becca is the girl he was cheating on Margo. As for Lacey, she felt that she's never been a good friend to her. They also visited Karin, who told her that Jase was cheating on her and leave her a bouquet of flowers. Q also has his revenge on the bully Chuck Parson. But before he get his revenge on Chuck, they have their rest first on Sun Trust Bank building. This was when she called their town a "paper town".

They returned home and on the next day at school, Margo didn't appear to school. After missing for three days, her parents filed a report. When Q learned about that, he noticed a poster of Woody Guthrie taped to the back of her shades. The poster led him to a song, Walt Whitman's Niece, which also led him to a book of poems, Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass. He believed that there are sections in the poem left by her which are clues to find her. He continued to search and find an address. He and his friends went there. It is an old mini-mall which has evidence that she's been there. There is also a spray- painted message on the wall.

The clues lead Q to believe that she's perhaps hiding out around Orlando. He went there but didn't find her. While getting ready for graduation, he discovered that she is hiding in a fictional town in New York called Agloe. Q, his friends and Lacey skip their graduation to go to New York to search for her. They found her living on the barn. But instead of being happy and grateful, she scolded them and told them that she doesn’t want to be found. Everybody, except Q got angry at her and went to a motel to spend their night. Q gets furious at her for wasting their time and for worrying her family. They talked things over and she decided to go to New York City. They kissed and bade their goodbyes.

ð  I like the summary for it is long and it really tells the story of paper towns. Good job to the summarizer.

Overall Comment:

 I like our performance in this book for everybody made their task well. Even we have to do two blogs at the same time, everybody still made a good job.