Paper Towns is about a girl and a boy who live next door. They aren’t particularly friends, but they used to be. This is, in some ways, about how they become friends again. It’s also about how she takes him on a prank-filled night and then disappears. He decides to find her.
It’s a fun YA story, and it references Whitman a lot. If I were a real book reviewer, I’d’ve gone off and read Leaves of Grass so I could understand those. Alas. It was still enjoyable.