Reading Rants! Out of the Ordinary Teen Booklists!

“To find Margo Roth Spiegelman, you must become Margo Roth Spiegelman.” High school senior Quentin Jacobsen has suffered unrequited love for alterna-hipster-grrl Margo Roth Spiegelman since the two of them discovered a dead body in the park of their Orlando subdivision when they were nine years old. Q never forgot how Margo seemed more fascinated by than terrified of the dead man, a fact that began to form the basis of his admiration from afar. Though Q trods the Nerd trail during high school while Margo glides down Popular path, when Margo is wronged by an ex-boyfriend, its’ Q she turns to for help in exacting her revenge. After a fun-filled night of creative pranks from the driver’s seat of his mom’s mini-van, Q is looking forward to exploring his new and improved relationship with the one and only Margo Roth Spiegelman. Except, the next day, Margo disappears. And if Q wants to know what it feels like to kiss those lips he’s worshiped from a distance, he’s going to have to follow the series of cryptic clues Margo left behind. But graduation is looming and time is running out. As the trail grows cold, Q wonders if Margo even wants to be found. And then his thoughts wander to an even darker place: was the best night of his life the last time he would ever see Margo Roth Spiegelman alive? John Green scores again with his own particular brand of smarty-McSmart adolescent-angst awesomeness. His intricate, intimate portraits of intellectual band geeks, gamers and fringe kids are so refreshing in a teen lit. world drowning in the superficial sea of Gossip Girl and her ilk. Plus, he just makes me laugh out loud with descriptions like this: “Those of us who frequent the band room have long suspected that Becca maintains her lovely figure by eating nothing but the souls of kittens and the dreams of impoverished children.” Margo comments that the planning is often more fun than the actual doing, and while I would agree that the end of Q’s crazy quest left me wanting more, I wouldn’t have traded the journey for anything! Being dropped off by mini-van at a library or bookstore near you October 2008.