John green paper cities description. John Green - Paper Towns. Is there a consensus

26.06.2020

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 the dictator of a small nation living on some island in the Pacific Ocean, or contract incurable terminal ear cancer, or suddenly spontaneously combust. 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 base navy. 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 is how the free land is now used. 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 flames of 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 their eyes closed,” she continued.

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 first 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 wailed 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, about how death is also part of life cycle, but at the age of nine I don’t have to think too much about this phase; in general, I feel better. Honestly, I’ve never really thought about this topic. This says a lot, because in principle I know how to drive.

These are the facts: I came across a dead man. A cute little nine-year-old boy, that is me, and my even smaller and much cuter girlfriend found a dead man in the park bleeding from his mouth, and when we rushed home, my girlfriend’s cute little sneakers were covered in his very blood. Very dramatic, of course, and all that, but so what? I didn't know him. Every damn day people I don't know die. If every misfortune that happened in this world drove me to a nervous breakdown, I would have lost my mind long ago.

At nine in the evening I went to my room, getting ready to go to bed - according to schedule. Mom tucked me a blanket, said that she loved me, I told her “see you tomorrow”, she also told me “see you tomorrow”, turned off the light and closed the door so that only a small gap remained.

Turning on my side, I saw Margot Roth Spiegelman: she was standing on the street, literally pressing her nose to the window. I stood up, opened it, now we were separated only by a mosquito net, because of which it seemed that she had a small dot on her face.

“I conducted an investigation,” she said in a serious tone.

Although the mesh made it difficult to see her properly, I still saw in Margot’s hands a small notebook and a pencil with indentations from teeth near the eraser.

She looked at her notes:

Mrs. Feldman of Jefferson Court said his name was Robert Joyner. And that he lived on Jefferson Road in an apartment in a building with a grocery store. I went there and found a bunch of police officers, one of them asked me what, from school newspaper, I answered that we don’t have our own newspaper at school, and he said that if I’m not a journalist, then he can answer my questions. It turned out that Robert Joyner was thirty-six years old. He's a lawyer. They wouldn't let me into his apartment, but I went to his neighbor named Juanita Alvarez under the pretext that I wanted to borrow a glass of sugar from her, and she said that this Robert Joyner had shot himself with a pistol. I asked why, and it turned out that his wife wanted to divorce him and this upset him very much.

Still from the film “Paper Towns” (2015)

Very briefly

A high school student in love with his neighbor who ran away from home is looking for the girl following the tracks she left behind. Having found her, the guy finds out that the neighbor did not want her to be found.

The first two parts of the novel are narrated from the perspective of high school student Quentin Jacobsen. The last part is written in third person.

Prologue

Quentin Jacobsen's parents moved to Orlando, Florida when the boy was two years old. They became friends with neighbors, and Quentin sometimes played with their daughter Margot. When the children were nine years old, they found the body of a man on the playground - he was sitting under a huge oak tree in a pool of his own blood.

Quentin's parents, psychotherapists, called the rescue service, but their son was forbidden to look at the cars. At night, Margot knocked on Quentin's window. She investigated and learned that the dead man's name was Robert Joyner. He was a thirty-six-year-old lawyer who killed himself because his wife left him.

Margot was very excited. She said that Joyner “had lost all the strings in his soul,” which is why he killed himself. This childhood memory ends with Quentin asking Margot to close the window, and then they look at each other through the glass for a long time. The neighbor became a mystery girl for him.

Part one. Threads

Time has passed. Quentin was finishing graduating class. He had not communicated with Margot Roth Spiegelman for a long time - the girl had her own company, into which losers and nerds were not accepted.

Quentin had two best friends. Everyone called Ben Starling "Bloody Ben." Due to a kidney infection, he had blood in his urine, but Becca Errington, Margot's best friend, spread gossip around the school that Ben constantly masturbates, which is why he urinates blood. Now girls were shying away from Ben, and he couldn’t find a date for the prom he dreamed of going to.

Quentin's second friend, a tall black guy named Radar, a computer-obsessed creator of the online encyclopedia Multipedia, was embarrassed by his parents, owners of the world's largest collection of black Santa Clauses. The whole house was filled with black Santa figures, and Radar could not bring his girlfriend there.

Quentin's last girlfriend left him for a baseball player, and he had no one to go to prom with, and he was not attracted to this event. He was a calm and smart guy who was doing well in school and was preparing to go to college. He considered Margot Roth Spiegelman perfection and admired her from afar. Real chances Quentin didn't have one - Margot was dating Jace Worthington, the most cool guy At school.

Margot was a legendary person. She was not afraid of anything and ran away from home many times. Each time, her parents searched for her with the police throughout the country.

One night Margot came to Quentin. Jace cheated on her with Becca, and the girl decided to take revenge on them, but her parents took the car key from her. She wanted Quentin to help her, and he agreed.

Today, dear one, we will make up for a lot of the wrongs done by others, and we will do a little harm to those others ourselves. The first will be last, the last will be first, and the meek will inherit a little land.

Having purchased everything they needed, they set out to implement Margot’s eleven-point plan.

The first thing Margot did was find Jace's car, put a lock on the steering wheel, and took the key to it with her. They then went to Becca and told her father by phone that his daughter was in this moment has sex with Jace in the basement of their house. When a half-naked Jace jumped out of the basement window, Quentin managed to take a photo of him. Sneaking into the basement, they stole Jace's clothes, left a raw fish carcass in the closet, and Margo painted the letter "M" on the wall.

After placing a bouquet of tulips on the porch of her friend, whom she had unfairly offended, Margot went to Jace and threw the second fish through his bedroom window. The third fish went to Lacey Pemberton, who did not warn her friend about the betrayal - Margot put it under the seat of her ex-girlfriend's car.

The ninth point was a break in the business center, where a familiar security guard Margot let them through. They looked at the city from a height of the 25th floor. Quentin liked the city, but Margot considered it fake, as if cut out of paper.

Paper people live in paper houses and heat them with their own future.

Margot said that betrayal cut off the last thread in her soul that connected her with this paper life. At that moment, Quentin believed that a romance would begin between them.

According to Margot's plan, the victim for the tenth point was to be chosen by Quentin. She forced the indecisive guy to take revenge on the stupid big guy Chuck, who tormented and humiliated Quentin. Sneaking into the sleeping Chuck's bedroom, they shaved off one of his eyebrows using depilatory cream. The victim woke up and chased after his accomplices, but they first smeared door handles Vaseline and they were impossible to turn.

The eleventh point was the penetration into the water park " Sea World" At first Quentin resisted - he had already done a lot for Margot that night. But the girl said that she could do everything alone. She chose Quentin to shake him, to pull him out of the paper world.

On the way to the water park, Quentin remembered Margot's old words about a man who died in the park. Then she also talked about broken threads. Laughing, Margot said she didn't want to be found in the park on a Saturday morning.

Making their way to Sea World, the guys got wet in a moat with stinking water, then Margot had to pay the guard who caught them, after which they wandered around the night water park for a long time and danced to the music pouring from the loudspeakers.

Part two. Grass

Due to lack of sleep, Quentin spent the entire next day as if in a dream, and by evening rumors spread around the school that Margot Roth Spiegelman had disappeared. The next day, the guys from her company began to press the defenseless nerds. It turned out that Margot forbade them to do this.

Quentin threatened Jace that he would post a photo of him half naked on the Internet. The repressions stopped.

Margot still did not return. One day, her parents came to Quentin's house, accompanied by a black detective. They wanted to know if Quentin knew anything about the girl's whereabouts. This was her fifth escape. The Spiegelmans decided to abandon their daughter and change the locks on the door.

Left alone with the detective, Quentinn told him about their nightly adventure. The detective believed that the Spiegelmans were not capable of raising children, and Margot was a freedom-loving person.

Such children are like helium-filled balloons tied by a string. And this thread is constantly stretched. And then something happens that it breaks and they can fly away.

Since Margot is already an adult, they will not look for her. But after each escape, she left a “trail of bread crumbs” - a series of mysterious hints. She hoped that her parents would stop thinking only about themselves and try to find her using these tracks.

A little later, Quentin looked out the window and saw, on the back of the closed blinds in Margot’s room, a poster of a folk singer who had not been there before. Quentin decided that this was the first trace left by Margot, and was determined to find her. He believed that the girl had chosen him again and hoped for a big prize.

After waiting for the Spiegelmans to leave, Quentin, Ben and Radar entered Margot's room. On one of vinyl records, which Margot turned out to have a lot of, they found an image of the singer from the poster. The title of the disc - "Walt Whitman's Niece" - was circled. Soon, friends found a collection of poet Walt Whitman, where Margot underlined several lines in the poem “Song of Myself.”

On Monday before classes, an upset Lacy Pemberton approached Quentin and said that Margo had nothing to take revenge on her for - she did not know about Jace's betrayal. Because of all this she lost best friend, broke up with the guy who knew about Jace's affair, and now she has no one to go to prom with. Lacy assumed that Margot had gone to New York and would be back soon, since she had left her things in her school locker. Ben took advantage of the moment and invited Lacey to go to prom together, and the girl agreed.

Ben suggested that the lines of the poem underlined by Margot, “Get the bolts off the doors!/And the very doors away from the jambs” are a direct guide to action. First, the friends took the door to Margot's room off its hinges, but found nothing. A few days later, Quentin removed the door to his room from its hinges and found a piece of newspaper with an address written in Margot's hand. Judging by Multipedia, this was the address of a shopping center.

The next day, having skipped classes, the friends went there and discovered that the shopping center was just a dilapidated barn with boarded up windows. Quentin remembered the underlined lines in Whitman's poem that talked about death, and decided that Margot had chosen this abandoned place to die.

Inside the building, friends found new “breadcrumbs” - an inscription on the wall “you are going to paper town and will never return” and a rectangular mark with holes from buttons. Going to Multipedia, Quentin found out that paper cities are unfinished settlements, ghost towns that exist only on maps.

Underpopulation! You'll go there and never come back.

Having become even more convinced that Margot had decided to kill herself and wanted him to find her body, Quentin decided to travel around all the undersettlements in the area and found the addresses of five paper cities.

From a literature teacher, Quentin learned that the poem “Song of Myself” is not about death, but “about interconnection - that we all have common roots, like grass.” The guy tried to read the poem, but couldn’t - it turned out to be too complicated.

Quentin drove around all five sub-settlements, found nothing, returned to the abandoned shopping center and discovered the place where Margo spent several nights. Quentin decided to stay here for the night because his parents thought he was at his graduation. He realized that none of them knew the real Margot, who was hiding behind the “cover” of the holiday girl. Having finally mastered the poem, Quentin realized that before looking for Margot, he must understand what kind of person she is - “there is a Margot for each of us, and each is more a mirror than a window.”

On a shelf in a shopping center abandoned in 1986, Quentin found the 1988 guidebook “On the Roads of America.” The corners of some pages were curled.

That night, a drunk and happy Ben called Quentin and asked him to pick him up from Becky's party, which he attended after graduation.

The next day, Quentin told his friends about his discovery, and they went to the mall, taking Lacey, who finally became Ben's girlfriend. There they came across two guys. Quentin recognized one as a security guard from downtown. The guys were keen on exploring abandoned buildings and knew Margot well. Having made her way into such a building, Margot did not photograph anything, but simply sat and wrote something in a black notebook. For Quentin, this was a new, unfamiliar Margot.

The next day, Radar's parents left and his friends had a party. They agreed not to wear anything other than shoes and a gown to graduation. The friends sat for a long time and told each other “window stories and mirror stories.”

Quentin read more and more into Whitman's poem - it helped him understand not only Margot, but also himself. And then he guessed: the rectangle with holes from buttons on the wall of the shopping center is a trace from a map hanging there with pins stuck into it.

The friends went to the shopping center and found a stack of maps in the souvenir department, one of which was published in 1872. The map matched the mark on the wall, but was torn where the pins had been stuck, and the guys again found themselves at a dead end. Quentin began to feel as if they had “reached the very end of the tangle, but found nothing.”

Quentin successfully passed the exams, and his parents gave him a car - a Ford minivan. He was sure that Margot had left forever and had no plans to appear at the graduation ceremony.

You can only feel pure high if you give up something important ‹…›. You are pulling yourself out by the roots. But you can only do this when you have these roots.

Before the graduation ceremony, Quenntin found an article on Multipedia about the underpopulation of Eeglo, where a comment was left stating that “the population of Eeglo will be one person before noon on May 29.” From the way he capitalized words in the middle of a sentence, Quentin knew that Margot had made the comment.

Part three. Vessel

Friends assigned roles. Lacey managed their meager property, and Radar calculated how fast they would need to travel to get from Florida to New York State by noon on May 29th. Everyone drove the car one by one. They had to stop and in six minutes manage to refuel the car and buy food and some clothes, because Ben and Radar had nothing on except robes.

They spent almost a day in the minivan, and during this time the car became their home. On the way, Quentin almost ran over two cows crossing the road. Ben, who was sitting next to him, saved the situation - he turned the steering wheel and the minivan did not roll over. Soon the friends were on their way, and Lacey called Ben a hero. Quentin secretly dreamed that Margot would be happy that she was found, throw herself on his neck and burst into tears.

Finally, the company arrived in Eeglo, which turned out to be an abandoned building similar to a barn. There, behind a screen made of two pieces of plexiglass, Margot Roth Spiegelman sat calmly and wrote something in her black notebook. Having finished writing, she looked at her friends with empty eyes, greeted politely and asked: “Why did you come here?”

Margot immediately quarreled with Lacey and Ben. The guys left, intending to go home in the morning. Quentin stayed - he had too many questions. It turned out that Margot had really left forever and did not want to be found at all.

She said that at the age of ten she began writing a novel about herself “with an emphasis on magic” in a black notebook. The heroine of the novel was in love with a boy named Quentin, had rich, loving parents and a talking dog, and was investigating the murder of Robert Joyner. Then, on top of what she had written, Margot began to compose detailed plans their escapes and other events.

In high school, Margo became interested in exploring abandoned buildings and decided to escape forever. She included Quentin in her latest plan because she liked him as a child and hoped that this adventure would liberate him. Then Margot found out about Jason's betrayal and decided to leave immediately, without waiting to receive her diploma.

Early in the morning, getting ready to leave, Margot noticed that she missed Quentin and decided to “bequeath” to him her passion for old buildings. The clues were supposed to lead him to an abandoned shopping center. She left the rest of the “breadcrumbs” by accident, in a hurry without having time to properly cover her tracks. She didn't think Quentin would be able to find her, so she went straight to Eeglo.

That night in the business center, Margo considered herself a piece of paper, not those around her. She created the image of a paper girl who everyone liked, but could not believe in him. Margot hoped that in the paper city of Eeglo she would become herself.

I know what's deeper there. Internal cracks. Schisms inner world, where one does not converge with the other. ‹…› Like holes in the hull of a ship. ‹…› And sooner or later you go to the bottom because of them.

Quentin invited Margot to live with them for the summer and then go to university, but she refused, fearing that she would be sucked in " right life- college, work, husband and kids and other nonsense.” Quentin did not agree with her: he believed in the future, for him everything listed is a meaningful life. Margot didn’t worry about what would happen next - “then consists of many now.”

After talking with Quentin, Margo called her parents and said that she was alive, but would not return back. The Spiegelmans were not upset. They believed that their daughter should please them, and when Margot rebelled, they threw her out of their life.

Then they lay in the grass until they fell asleep. Waking up, they dug a deep hole in which Margot decided to “bury” a black notebook with a story about Robert Joyner. Quentin said they only recognized each other when they started looking into each other's eyes.

Before that, we saw only fictional images of each other ‹…›. And when a crack appears, light gets in. And the light also comes out.

Then they kissed, and Margot invited Quentin to come with her to New York, but he refused and realized that their paths were completely diverging. Having thrown earth over the “grave” of Margot’s past, they parted.

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 the dictator of a small nation living on some island in the Pacific Ocean, or contract incurable terminal ear cancer, or suddenly spontaneously combust. 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. Marry the Queen of England or hang out alone at sea for several months, on the brink 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 is how the free land is now used. 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, there is also a large charitable organization named after him, 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.

Quentin,” Margot said quietly and calmly.

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

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 their eyes closed,” she continued.

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.

Margonado come home now!

“Okay, fine,” she agreed.

And then we went home. My parents called 911, sirens wailed 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.

“I conducted an investigation,” she said in a serious tone.

Although the mesh made it difficult to see her properly, I still saw in Margot’s hands a small notebook and a pencil with indentations from teeth near the eraser.

She looked at her notes:

Mrs. Feldman of Jefferson Court said his name was Robert Joyner. And that he lived on Jefferson Road in an apartment in a building with a grocery store. I went there and found a bunch of police officers, one of them asked, am I from the school newspaper, I answered that we don’t have our own newspaper at school, and he said that if I am not a journalist, then he can answer my questions. It turned out that Robert Joyner was thirty-six years old. He's a lawyer. They wouldn't let me into his apartment, but I went to his neighbor named Juanita Alvarez under the pretext that I wanted to borrow a glass of sugar from her, and she said that this Robert Joyner had shot himself with a pistol. I asked why, and it turned out that his wife wanted to divorce him and this upset him very much.

This was where Margot’s story ended, and I stood and silently looked at her: her gray moonlight the face was broken by the window screen into thousands of tiny dots. Her large round eyes darted from me to the notebook and back.

“Many people get divorced without committing suicide,” I commented.

- I know,- she answered excitedly. - I'm just the same Juanita Alvarez said. And she answered... - Margo turned the page. - ...that Mr. Joyner was not an easy man. I asked what this meant, and she simply offered to pray for him and told me to bring sugar to my mother, I told her: “Forget about sugar” - and left.

I said nothing again. I wanted her to continue talking - in her quiet voice there was the excitement of a person approaching the solution to some important issue, and this gave me the feeling that something very important was happening.

“I think I maybe understand why he did it,” Margot finally said.

“All the strings in his soul were probably cut off,” she explained.

Thinking What To this you can answer, I pressed the latch and took out the mesh that separated us from the window. I put her on the floor, but Margot didn’t let me say anything. She practically buried her face in me and ordered: “Close the window,” and I obeyed. I thought she was going to leave, but she stayed and continued to look at me. I waved my hand and smiled at her, but it seemed to me that she was looking at something behind me, at something so terrible that the blood drained from her face, and I was so frightened that I did not dare turn around and look. what's there? But, naturally, there was nothing like that behind me - except, perhaps, that dead man.

I stopped waving. Margot and I looked at each other through the glass, our faces at the same level. I don’t remember how it all ended - I went to bed or she left. This memory has no end for me. We just stand there and stare at each other for ages.

Margo loved all sorts of riddles. Subsequently, I often thought that maybe that was why she herself became a mystery girl.

Part one

The longest day of my life was in no hurry to begin: I woke up late, took a very long shower, so I had to have breakfast that Wednesday at 7:17 in my mother’s minivan.

I usually go to school with my best friend Ben Starling, but he left on time that day, so he couldn't pick me up. “Arrive on time” for us meant “half an hour before the bell.” The first thirty minutes of the school day were the most significant point in our schedule. public life: We gathered at the back door to the rehearsal room and talked. Many of my friends played in the school orchestra, so almost everyone free time we spent within a twenty-foot radius of their rehearsal room. But I myself did not play, because the bear stepped on my ear, squeezing it so hard that sometimes I could even be mistaken for deaf. I was twenty minutes late, which meant I would still arrive ten minutes before first period started.

Along the way, mom started talking about school, exams and graduation.

I’m not interested in graduation,” I reminded her as she turned the corner.

I held a bowl of cereal taking into account dynamic overloads. I already had experience.

I think there will be nothing wrong if you go there with a girl with whom you are just on friendly terms. You can invite Cassie Zadkins.

Yes I could invite Cassie Zadkins - she’s just great, and sweet, and pleasant, but she’s unlucky with her last name.

It's not just that I don't like the idea of going to prom. I also don’t like those people who like the idea of going to prom,” I explained, although this, in fact, was not true. Ben, for example, was simply raving about this graduation.

Mom was driving up to the school, and I held the plate on the speed bump, which, however, was already almost empty. I looked at the senior parking lot. Margot Roth Spiegelman's silver Honda stood in its usual place. Mom pulled into a dead end outside the rehearsal room and kissed me on the cheek. Ben and the rest of my friends stood in a semicircle.

I walked towards them, and the semicircle received me, becoming a little larger. They were discussing my ex, Susie Cheng. She played the cello and now decided to make a splash by dating a baseball player named Teddy Mack. I didn't even know if it was a real name or a nickname. But be that as it may, Susie decided to go to the prom with him, with this Teddy Mack. Another blow of fate.

“Hey,” Ben, who was standing opposite, called out to me.

He shook his head and turned around. I followed him. He entered the rehearsal room. My best friend Ben was small and dark and by then beginning to mature, but not yet ripe. He and I have been friends since the fifth grade - from the very moment when we both finally accepted the fact that no one else could best friend"Didn't give up. Plus, he tried really hard to be good, and I liked that - for the most part.

Well, how are you? - I asked. No one could hear us from there.

“Radar is going to prom,” he announced gloomily.

This is another one of our best friends. We nicknamed him Radar because he looked like the little bespectacled Radar from the old TV show, except that, firstly, Radar in that show was not black, and secondly, after a while our Radar grew six inches longer and started wearing contact lenses, so I suspect that, and this is the third, he didn’t like that dude from the TV show at all, but fourthly, since there were only three and a half weeks left of school, invent another nickname for him we didn't intend to.

With this Angela? - I asked.

Radar never said anything about his personal life, which, however, did not stop us from constantly making our own assumptions in this regard.

Did I tell you about my grand plan? Should I invite some of the younger ones? Of those who don’t know my “bloody history”?

I nodded.

So,” Ben continued. - Today some cute bunny from the ninth grade came up to me and asked: “Are you the same bloody Ben?” I started to explain to her that it was due to a kidney infection, but she giggled and ran away. So this plan is out of the question.

In tenth grade, Ben was taken to the hospital because he had a kidney infection, but Becca Errington, Margot's best friend, started a rumor that he had blood in his urine because he constantly jerked off. Despite the fact that from a medical point of view this is complete nonsense, Ben still feels the consequences of this story.

It sucks,” I sympathized.

Ben began to let me in on his new plan find a date for prom, but I only half-listened, because in the crowd gathering in the corridor I noticed Margot Roth Spiegelman. She was standing at her locker - and next to her was her boyfriend, Jace. She was wearing White skirt knee-length and a top with some kind of blue pattern. I looked at her collarbones. She was laughing at something like crazy - bent over, her mouth wide open, and there were wrinkles in the corners of her eyes. But it seemed to me that it was not Jace who made her laugh, because she was not looking at him, but somewhere in the distance, at a row of lockers. I followed her gaze and saw Becca Errington hanging on some baseball player like a garland on a Christmas tree. I smiled at Margot, although I understood that she still couldn’t see me.

Old man, you still have to make up your mind. Forget Jace. God, she's an incredibly sweet bunny.

We walked along the corridor, and I kept sneaking glances at her, as if taking a photograph: it was a series of photographs called “Perfection is motionless, and mere mortals scurry past it.” As we got closer, I thought that maybe she wasn’t laughing at all, maybe she was surprised with something or was given something as a gift, or something like that. Margot just couldn't seem to shut her mouth.

“Yes,” I answered Ben, still not listening to him because I was too busy: I tried not to miss anything, but at the same time I didn’t want anyone to notice that I was staring at her.

It's not even that she's very beautiful. Margot is simply a goddess in the literal sense of the word. We walked past her, the crowd between us thickened, and I could barely see her anymore. I was never able to talk to her and find out what made her laugh and surprise. Ben shook his head: he realized a long time ago that I couldn’t take my eyes off this girl, and he was already used to it.

No, honestly, she's cool, of course, but not so. You know who's really sexy?

Who? - I asked.

Lacey,” Ben replied, referring to Margot’s other best friend. - And your mother too. Forgive me, of course, but when I saw her kissing you on the cheek today, I thought: “Lord, what a pity that I’m not in his place,” I'm telling you honestly. And further: “What a pity that the cheeks are not located on the penis.”

I elbowed him in the ribs, although I was still thinking about Margot, since she was the legend who lived next door to me. Margot Roth Spiegelman - all six syllables of her name were almost always pronounced with a slight touch of dreaminess. Margot Roth Spiegelman - stories of her epic adventures shook the entire school like an earthquake. An old man who lived in a dilapidated house in Hot Coffee, Mississippi, taught Margot to play the guitar. Margot Roth Spiegelman traveled with the circus for three days - they thought she could perform well on the trapeze. In St. Louis, Margo Roth Spiegelman sipped a cup of herbal tea backstage with the Millionaires while they drank whiskey themselves. Margot Roth Spiegelman got to that concert by lying to the bouncers that she was the bassist's girlfriend: Don't you recognize me, yeah, guys, stop kidding, I'm Margot Roth Spiegelman, and if you ask the bassist himself, as soon as he sees me, he will say that I am his girlfriend, or that he really wants me to become one; the bouncer obeyed, and the bass player actually said: “Yes, that’s my girl, let her go to the concert,” and then, after the performance, he wanted to hook up with her, but she rejected the bassist from "Mallionaires".

Whenever someone told about Margot's adventures, the story always ended with the question: “Damn, can you believe it?” Often it was impossible to believe, but then it always turned out that it was really true.

And then Ben and I reached our lockers. Radar stood there, typing something into his handheld.

“So you’re going to prom,” I said.

He looked up at me and then back down to the screen.

"Paper Towns" summary books will remind you of what this novel is about.

"Paper Cities" summary

The story in the first 2 chapters is told from the perspective of high school student Quentin Jacobsen. Final chapter told in third person.

Paper Towns begins with a prologue. The action takes place nine years before the events of the novel. When Quentin Jacobsen and Margo Roth Spiegelman were nine years old, they found a dead man in a nearby park. Margot found out that Robert Joyner (that was the man's name) committed suicide due to a divorce from his wife. This experience bonds Quentin and Margot. But from then on, he and Margot no longer communicated.

In the first part Margot already popular girl, she hasn't spoken to Quentin since she was nine years old. And Quentin Jacobsen is a 17-year-old boy who is a senior at Orlando High School. He loved his childhood best friend, Margot, all his life. Quentin is a smart boy, but Margot doesn’t accept nerds into her company.

A few weeks before graduation high school Margo appears at Quentin's window in the middle of the night. She asks you to help her take revenge on the guy who cheated on her. She turned to him because she did not have a car and he had to help her implement the 11 points of her plan and take revenge on friends who had offended her. Margot and Quentin creatively break into their friends' houses and cars, causing damage to them. Their night of mischief and revenge culminates at the Sea World water park.

Part two covers the last few weeks of school. After a night of adventure, Margot disappears. This is not the first time she has run away from home. This time her parents decide not to look for her. However, she left clues for Quentin, and he intends to piece them together to find out where she went.

Quentin turns to his friends Radar and Ben, and Margot's friend, Lacey, for help in trying to find her. They end up going on a journey to find or "rescue" her. Margo left the keys in Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Along the way, Quentin realizes that Margot is not really what he thought he knew.

Margot's vague clues led Quentin and his friends to an old, abandoned shopping mall where Margot spent some time. In the mini-hall, they find maps and other clues that help them guess where Margot was planning the route.

Quentin begins to explore Margot's obsession with what she calls "paper towns," or pseudo-suburban suburban developments that were abandoned before they were fully built. Quentin makes short trips to all such structures he can find in Central Florida to see if she is there, but does not find her.

During his quest, Quentin seeks out a group of prodigies who can restore order to the chaos that is the high school's social hierarchy and earns some respect from the popular crowd. Quentin is more obsessed with finding Margot than his friends because Margot is the center of Quentin's universe, while Radar and Ben are more concerned about school, their girlfriends, and final exams. On graduation night, Quentin is not interested in going to prom, plans to spend the night in an abandoned mall at Margot's hideout. He fell asleep there, but woke up to drive his friends after the prom.

Quentin continues his search, he cannot think about graduation or exams when his mind is constantly occupied with thoughts of Margot. On the morning of graduation, Quentin discovers that Margot left a clue on the Radar website, that she is in the "paper town" of Agloya, near New York City, and she will be there until May 29 at noon. This gives Quentin only twenty-four hours to get there. Quentin, Radar, Ben and Lacey skipped graduation and travel to Agloi in the minibus that Quentin's parents gave him for graduation.

Part three chronicles this epic road trip from Central Florida to upstate New York, which Quentin chronicled hour by hour. The road trip is crazy, they take turns driving, but it's a bonding experience for four friends. When they arrive in Agloi, Margo acts indifferent and cold towards them. Lacey, Ben and Radar get angry and leave, but Quentin stays and talks to Margot. She explains why she feels obligated to cut ties with Orlando and her past, and invites Quentin to go to New York with her. She doesn’t want to live according to the script - home, work, family, children...

They kiss. However, Quentin refuses to stay in Margot's literal and symbolic paper town, and Margot refuses to return to the emotional goals of her life in Orlando.

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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". In both cases, we see the relationship between a guy and a girl, but Margo and Alaska are as similar in character as two peas in a pod, the same with the main 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 your 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 it was expressed great amount true thoughts, 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 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.

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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! Riddles, disappearance, searches, action line, 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. Before, I have never come across books 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.

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