Paper Towns is John Green's third novel, published in 2008. It deals with similar elements of his previous works, including the presence of a beautiful yet eccentric female and a gawky, uncertain male. It is compared to his 2005 novel Looking for Alaska due to their common themes of adolescence and first love.
The inspiration for Paper Towns came from a road trip Green took during college, in which he discovered his own "paper town" called Holen, South Dakota. Paper towns, as they are referred to in the book, are fake towns that cartographers add to maps as a copyright trap.
Paper Towns became the #5 bestselling novel in the New York Times. In 2009, it won the Edgar Award for Best Adult Mystery. While Paper Towns received largely positive reviews, it was criticized for its sexual content and even removed from the summer reading list of Dr John Long Middle School in Pasco County, Florida (though it was returned to the list the next month).
A film adaptation of Paper Towns was released on July 24, 2015. Nat Wolff (who also starred in the film adaptation of Green's The Fault in Our Stars) plays Quentin and supermodel Cara Delevingne plays Margo Roth Spiegelman.
