17-year-old Quentin Jacobsen has been in love with his next-door neighbor, beautiful and unattainable Margo Roth Spiegelman, for his entire life. A leader at their Central Florida high school, she has carefully cultivated her tough-girl image. Quentin is one of the smart kids, never allowed around Margo's clique. His parents are therapists and he is, above all things, "well adjusted." He takes a rare risk when Margo appears at his window in the middle of the night. They drive around "righting wrongs" via her brilliant, elaborate pranks. Then she runs away (again). He slowly uncovers the depth of her unhappiness and the vast differences between the real and imagined Margo. Green's prose is believable—from hilarious trash talk to devastating observation and truths. He nails it—exactly how a thing feels, looks, affects a teen—page after page. The mystery of Margo—her disappearance and her as a person—is fascinating, cleverly constructed, and profoundly moving. Green builds tension through both the twists of the active plot and the subject. He avoids the usual coming-of-age character arc. Instead, the teen thinks deeper and harder—about the beautiful and terrifying ways we can and cannot know those we love.
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