"Paper Towns" by John Green

BOOK TITLE: Paper Towns

AUTHOR: John Green

YEAR: 2008

GENRE: Fiction

SUBGENRE: Young Adult Mystery

GRADE: Extra Credit

Straight-laced high school senior Quentin Jacobsen has had a crush on the free-spirited and mysterious Margo Roth Spiegelman since he was a little boy. He loves her so much that he agrees to go with her on a late-night revenge prank spree against everybody in Orlando, Florida who has ever wronged her from backstabbing best friends to promiscuous ex-boyfriends. The very next day, Margo goes missing and leaves behind a trail of clues for Quentin and his friends, Ben and Radar, to track down. Everyone seems intent on giving up on Margo and getting on with their own lives, except for Quentin, who is determined to find her even if it means missing out on his most important life moments.

While I won’t divulge what the ending result of this story is, I will say that it hit me harder than a flying brick to the skull. It was painful to where it almost made me cry, but it was a necessary pain that conveyed the message of the story all too well. It shows how dangerous putting people high on a pedestal can be, especially when those “idols” fail to live up to your expectations. Lord knows I’ve had a lot of crushes in my lifetime and still have some today. I keep thinking these women are angels sent from the heavens to steal my heart away and make me eternally happy. And that’s why they say, “Never meet your idols, because they will disappoint you.” I spent the entire reading of this book thinking the best was going to happen and then I get a much-needed slap in the face. Thanks for that, John Green.

I also admire Mr. Green’s ability to incorporate preexisting pieces of literature into the clues of his mystery. The bulk of these clues rely heavily on a Walt Whitman poem called Song of Myself. The themes of death, rebirth, and burial create a deep sense of fear within Quentin that Margo might be dead. But then there’s another piece of literature that fits in perfectly as well: Moby Dick. Captain Ahab becomes so obsessed with finding this whale that it nearly kills him. It reminds me of The Shawshank Redemption where Andy Dufresne expands the prison library and one of the books is The Count of Monte Cristo, a novel about breaking out of prison and getting revenge on those who locked him up. It’s a fascinating literary technique that has stood the test of time. After all, the classics never go out of style, right?

And then we have the theme of paper towns, phantom settlements with fake names that have no business being on official maps. After Margo takes Quentin with her on the revenge spree, she talks about Orlando being a paper town due to the lack of real people with real emotional substance. In other words, the citizens are too concerned with shallow values such as getting laid, buying things, and being better than everyone else. I’d want to go missing from a place like that if I could. Come to think of it, I did live in a “paper town” as Margo describes it. It was called Chehalis, Washington and it’s the town where I considered suicide for the first time in my life. It too was filled with people who walked around like zombies and stabbed each other in the backs. I left that place in 2001 and only came back in short bursts. One can’t help but think Margo has a good point, which is why it’s easy to fall in love with her even from many miles away.

Paper Towns is a book that transcends the young adult genre and is accessible to any age group. Lord knows there are older adults that will feel a sense of jaded nostalgia when they read about the activities going on in this novel. To those people, I say be thankful that you can leave your past behind and look forward to a better day. Be grateful for your newfound maturity so that you don’t make the same mistakes that Quentin Jacobsen makes in this novel. An extra credit grade goes to John Green for giving me the slap in the face that woke me up from the matrix.

WWE NXT: Eva Marie vs. Carmella

MATCH: Eva Marie vs. Carmella
PROMOTION: World Wrestling Entertainment
EVENT: Episode of NXT
YEAR: 2015
RATING: TV-PG for violence
GRADE: Did Not Finish


Being negative is not one of my strong suits. There was a time when I was young and immature and negativity came naturally to me. These days whenever I give a bad review, a little piece of me on the inside dies a brutal death. With that being said, if I don’t do this review, I feel like it will be a missed opportunity to tell it like it is. This needs to be said even though it’s already being said by tons of people. Hell, the NXT audience at Full Sail University in Florida are vocal every time Eva Marie steps through the gorilla position; they boo her relentlessly.

Carmella, on the other hand, I have no problem with. Yes, she used to be rough around the edges when it came to wrestling. Yes, her theme music gives me migraines. But the difference between Carmella and Eva Marie is that the former is capable of improving her game. Carmella used to get as many boos as her opponent, but after hanging around with Enzo Amore and Colin Cassady for long enough and standing up for her boys, those boos eventually turned to cheers. Maybe it has something to do with her funky dance moves. She can moonwalk, for Christ’s sake. Moonwalk!

Eva Marie doesn’t deserve the same praise as the other divas for her wrestling abilities. In fact, watching her wrestle is as awkward as my schizophrenic behavior in the grocery store line. I understand that she wants to get better and has even recruited the help of wrestling veteran and former WWE Tag Team Champion Brian Kendrick to train her. This isn’t a knock against Brian Kendrick, but when I watched Eva Marie on that episode of NXT battling Carmella, I didn’t see improvement. I saw drunken choreography without the breathalyzer test.

Here’s how the match went down. Carmella and Eva Marie got in several collar elbow tie ups and the latter had the former pinned against the corner for a series of unconvincing elbows to the face. Eva Marie’s strikes looked more like massage therapy than combat. So what does Carmella do? She throws that Jessica Rabbit clone through the ropes and lets her crash and burn on the steel ramp. And then Carmella did a little spinning dance and the moonwalk to excite the crowd. Eva Marie eventually got back in the ring and gave her opponent a series of weird-looking vertical suplexes. There were even times when Eva was setting up the move and it looked like she was having a tough time deciding which wrestling move to do.

Before my IQ dropped any further, I grabbed my Roku remote and fast forwarded through that match. I never figured out who won, nor did I care. If watching this match doesn’t make your brain hurt, listen to this. Eva Marie has actually been picking up wins since debuting in NXT, presumably to be pushed into contention for the NXT Women’s Championship, which is currently held by Bayley, a true wrestler in every sense of the word. Really, NXT? You’re the hottest thing going on in wrestling today and you want to push Eva Marie into the main event? You’re right. Eva Marie is red hot. Her matches burn my eyes!

If there is a God in heaven, then He will do the right thing and inspire the readership of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter to show Eva Marie no mercy in the award votes. She’s definitely qualified for Most Overrated, Worst Worked Match of the Year, and even Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic for botching the ending to an NXT match she had against Billie Kay. Either that or she’ll win the latter award just for being pushed. Bob Backlund, Jose Gonzalez, and Eric Watts are all wrestling legends who were given the Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic award just for being the recipient of a main event push. However, if WWE continues to insult their fans for buying pay-per-views instead of subscribing to the WWE Network, Eva Marie might get a reprieve from the MDPT award.

I need a shower. A long, boiling hot shower with easy access to my Head and Shoulders shampoo and my Axe Phoenix body wash. Writing this review didn’t feel good. Then again, negativity is never therapeutic no matter which channel it comes out of.