Paper Towns, John Green

This is a book for high school boys. And it is excellent.

The main character, Quentin, lives next door to Margo Roth Spiegleman--the girl of everyone's dreams. One night, near the end of their senior year of high school, Margo shows up at his bedroom window dressed like a ninja and takes him on an adventure around the town to exact revenge on her cheating boyfriend and various other offenders. The next morning, Margo has disappeared, and Quentin begins a quest to find her. Along the way, he discovers the real "Margo" behind the super-human image that he and the rest of the school has attached to her. He discovers her human fears and insecurities, and her human flaws. He also discovers a new confidence in himself along the way.

Because it is written for and from the perspective of 17 year old boys, there is a certain amount of discussion of masturbation and of body parts that isn't necessarily appealing to someone who is not of that gender and age group. But the story itself is deep and moving. I really enjoyed reading it, and its implications are still on my mind, which I find to be the sign of a good book.

Oh, and I should mention: the entire quest to find Margo (and "Margo") is paralleled by Whitman's "Song of Myself." Quentin discovered a copy of Leaves of Grass in Margo's bedroom that she had highlighted and written in, and he tries to use the poetry as a way to discover how she thinks and where she might have decided to go when she ran away. It ends up allowing him to better understand himself, the world, what it means to be free, etc. John Green handled it in such a way that the discussion of literature wouldn't be repulsive to his teenage boy readers; but anyone who reads the book finds himself engaged in the poetry and understanding it on the level that Green wants him to. It was very well done, I think.