The movie begins with a beautiful view of the scene. A young boy starts talking about life
and its miracle. He claims that everyone gets a miracle in their lives. It might be in different
forms but it happens to everyone at least once in their life. The boy, whose name is Quentin, is the
main narrator of the story. He lives in the state of Florida. Quentin has always been a shy boy and
has already found the miracle of his life. Turns out, his miracle is a girl. It's clearly different
from the miracles happening to others. Quentin's life had completely changed the day Margo Roth
Spiegelman moved next door. He considers her his one true love and the miracle of his life.
When Quentin saw Margo for the very first time, he fell madly in love with her. After that moment,
his feelings for her never changed. He's head over heels for her but always tries to
express it. As time goes on, the two become best friends. They're also very close in
age which is why they do everything together. Even though they spend a lot of time together,
Margo and Quentin are polar opposites. Margo is a very different girl who likes adventure
and life. She doesn't like living a normal life with nothing to induce excitement. She always
investigates something or the other and looks at things from a very different perspective.
The two are very close and love each other's presence until one day they
discover a dead body. Apparently, the man who took his own life couldn't handle a nasty
divorce from his wife. Quentin found out about the man's miserable life but didn't
care much about it. On the other hand, Margo took it badly. She was really affected by it.
One day, she just shows up at his window, claiming that she has found out about the
dead man's wife. She tells him that the wife works at SeaWorld. Quentin is confused as to why
Margo is telling him all this. That's when she tells him that she wants to go out with him to
SeaWorld and solve the mystery. Quentin thinks that it's a really bad idea, and refuses to go
as it is already 11:00 p m and they are kids. He doesn't want to get caught up in all this.
Quentin stays home but Margo doesn't. She rides her bike to SeaWorld without
him. Quentin then comments about how Margo loves mysteries so much that
she herself has become one. Her life is a series of epic and thrilling adventures.
Years pass by, and the two of them turn into teenagers. As they're grown now, they're not
as close as they used to be. They're not best friends who go on adventures anymore. Margo is a
very popular girl in high school whereas Quentin is not. He is just a simple boy who has a small
friend circle. Despite all this, Margo hasn't changed at all. She still loves adventures in
life and just can't get enough of them. She does whatever she wants for fun. Margo dates
a lot of guys and gets bored really easily. She can't seem to stick to one thing for very long.
Margo sees Quentin often as they are neighbors but doesn't think much about it. On the other hand,
Quentin still loves her a lot. Margo, however, never reciprocates his feelings. She only
considers him as a friend and nothing more. Because of this, Quentin is really hurt and
upset. He gets jealous whenever he sees her with her boyfriend but Margo never even notices him.
Slowly, the two of them sort of drift apart even more. Despite this, Quentin never stops thinking
about her or loving her. He keeps on waiting for her as he thinks that a miracle might happen to
anyone at any time. He hopes that some miracle might make Margo like him romantically too.
Quentin has two best friends named Ben and Marcus. The three are very close and spend
all their time together. Ben is a very funny guy. He always tries to get a girlfriend but
fails miserably. Even then, he's still really cheerful and tries to avoid the negativities
in life. When Ben was 12 years old, he got a kidney infection and started literally
passing the blood through his urine. Somehow after he recovered, he found that the news
had spread around the school. A rumor had spread throughout the entire school that his condition
was the result of chronic maturation. Even now, nobody believes him when he talks about
his real condition. Because of this, nobody trusts him and he doesn't have a girlfriend.
Their senior year has now drawn to a close. One day, Quentin's mother drops him off at
his school. They talk about prom and that's when his mother forces him to go to prom.
Quentin refuses as he doesn't want to attend prom because he misses Margo a lot. He doesn't want to
go there without her and watch her dance with someone else. Things have gotten so bad that
she doesn't even talk to him nowadays. As his mother is dropping him off at school,
Ben and Marcus come and start to flirt with her, but she leaves immediately.
After that Ben starts to joke around with his friends. He exclaims about
how he wants to ride a bike with Quentin's mother as she's really beautiful and cool.
Ben and Marcus laugh at that but Quentin just says it's weird. He feels so bored in school
that he spends his day doing all sorts of extracurricular activities. He also uses
this excuse to watch Margo from afar. Quentin thinks that one day she will come to him. But
now that she has started to ignore him, he feels low and thinks that the day might never come.
He also realizes that he should forget if the miracle ever happens, and consoles himself by
saying that in a few months, he'll graduate and go off to college where he might find someone else.
Quentin has lost all hope about Margo but one night, Margo crawls through Quentin's window
and asks to borrow his car. He is shocked to see her in his bedroom and he says that he doesn't
have a car. That's when Margo asks him to give her his mother's car, because her parents keep their
car keys in a safe under their bed every night. Margo's parents are tired of her running away so
they always hide all the keys before going to bed. There's also a dog nearby who hates Margo. If she
even dares to just walk out, the dog will bark and wake her parents up. Because of all this, she begs
him to give her the car. Quentin hesitantly agrees and they plan to use his mom's car.
Just then, she says that she needs a driver along with the car too. Quentin is confused
but that's when she requests him to drive the car for her. She talks about how she wants to do nine
things that night. Quentin then asks her if it's problems related to her boyfriend. Margo replies
that it's her ex-boyfriend now and that it isn't related to him at all. She convinces him to go to
the shopping mall. Quentin hesitantly agrees. When she asks him what he wants to do in the
future in order to be happy, Quentin just says that he wants to complete his education by 30,
get married, and finally have kids to be happy. He thinks that's a good answer but Margo doesn't
agree with it. She wants to be completely different from others and hates monotonous
lives. After a whole lot of discussion, they go to the shopping mall to buy some things,
but Quentin still can't figure out what she is doing. He then finds out that Margo looks
upset because she had caught her boyfriend, Jace, cheating on her with her own best friend, Becca.
The two head to Costco and buy lots of plastic saran wraps,
raw catfish for cooking, some petroleum jelly, spray paint, a steering wheel lock,
and Nair. Quentin is confused by this very random choice of things but doesn't say anything. That's
when he realizes that Margo plans to get revenge on all those who have wronged her.
Jace cheated on Margo with Becca, so they decided to head to her house first. As they're waiting
outside, Margo sees Jace's car and places a lock on his steering wheel, knowing he never locks the
car. She then calls Becca's house where her dad picks up. Margo informs him that Becca is having
romantic moments in his basement. Hearing this, her dad storms downstairs to discover the two of
them in her room. Margo's plan goes exactly as she had wanted. She hands Quentin a camera before Jace
runs out, and instructs him to take a picture of the cheater running naked across Becca's lawn. As
anticipated, Jace runs out and sees Quentin but continues running. Quentin is scared,
as Jace is on the football team and can beat him up, but Margo asks him to click zoomed-in pictures
of Jace's microscopic pee pee. She says that Jace won't beat him up if he threatens to release the
photo. Quentin is shocked to see Margo so vengeful. After clicking enough pictures,
both of them run into Becca's room. There, they see Becca is elsewhere, quarreling with her dad.
Margo takes this opportunity to throw a fish in her closet and sprays a large M on the wall. The
next house they head to is Lacey's who is one of Margo's best friends as well. Margo is upset at
her because Lacey knew all about Jace and Becca. Even then, she decided to stay quiet and not say
a word to Margo. As revenge, Margo saran-wraps Lacey's car and sprays a large M on it. Quentin
and Margo continue on the journey. The next house they head to is the guy who told all the girls
in sixth grade not to dance with Quentin. Margo says that it's for Quentin's revenge. She tells
him to spray Nair on one of his eyebrows while she locks the door and puts petroleum jelly on
the handle. Quentin agrees and as he wipes Nair off of the guy's eyebrow, he wakes up.
He's mad at Quentin and as the two run out of his house, the guy pulls on his car door. But
he's unable to open it as the jelly on the door makes it very hard to unlock. Margo
and Quentin take this opportunity to run away from there and towards their next destination.
The next place they head to is a business building. Quentin is hesitant to enter as
he doesn't want to be caught trespassing because he has his whole life set out for him. He plans
to go to Duke University, and attend med school after that. He wants children by the age of 30,
and looks forward to being happy. On the other hand, Margo is still confused that he wants to
wait until he's 30 before he's happy. When they reach their target, Margo lets him know
that the guard's name is Gus. The two walk in, and Gus lets them inside while saying,
"Mi casa es su casa.” He and Margo seem to know each other well. They then go to a conference
room that overlooks the beautiful city. Margo points at all the buildings and calls it a
paper town with paper people, complaining that no one seems to care about the right things.
Quentin is really smitten with her, so they dance to some music before heading
back home. After parking the car back home, Quentin asks Margo if things will change
between the two of them. Margo says that she thinks they will. This makes Quentin
really happy as he thinks that the miracle has finally happened to him. He bids Margo
goodbye and goes back to sleep, waiting for a beautiful new morning with Margo.
But the next day, Margo is gone. She's absent from school. Quentin thinks that maybe she's just
sick or something but Margo never comes back. It's been days and there are no signs of her. Finally,
he decides to check in on Margo. When he goes to her house, he sees Margo's parents there with
a police officer. All of them greet Quentin in the dining room as he enters and starts asking
him about Margo. He says that he had only seen Margo a couple of days ago and not after that.
He tells them that he saw her last Wednesday night but leaves out all the specifics, just saying that
she climbed through his window to say hi. Everyone is tense about Margo but even then, her parents
refuse to file a missing person report. They think that she'll be back soon because she has run away
five times before. She's also eighteen now and free to do whatever she wants so they can't really
stop her anymore. Quentin then comments that every time she leaves, she drops clues for her loved
ones to come find her. Mainly she leaves the clues to Ruthie, her sister whom she loves very much.
Quentin is deeply in love with Margo so he decides to solve clues with Ruthie to help.
They decide to go find her and even ask Ben and Marcus to tag along. They instantly agree
and say that they'll do anything to find Margo. As always, Margo has left clues to solve the mystery,
but they don't seem to get anywhere with it. One day, Quentin notices that Margo's shades are down,
showing a band on the blinds. He thinks that it's really weird, as all these years
her blinds have never been down. The three friends then go to Margo's house when her
parents aren't home. They see Ruthie there and ask to go to Margo's room but she doesn't let
them. They eventually bribe her with $20 to let them look around and she agrees. The three enter
Margo's room to see it filled with records. On her blinds, he searches the records for
the band. Quentin finally finds the record he is looking for and sees a circle drawn around
Walt Whitman's niece. Then he sees the Walt Whitman book on her desk and takes it home.
He spends the next few days reading the book, and comes across a line circled: "Unscrew the
doors themselves from their jams." Quentin is intrigued by this so he decides to go to Margo's
house again. Once again, he bribes her sister with $20 and uses a screwdriver to unhinge her doors,
but unfortunately, he finds nothing. Later that night, while still reading Walt Whitman's book,
he notices a small piece of paper with an address written on it. He thinks that's a
clue and immediately calls for Marcus to join him, but Marcus refuses. He offers to go the next day,
as he's busy with his girlfriend, Angela. Quentin is disappointed but agrees nonetheless.
The next day, all three guys head to a very scary part of town. They go to the address and
find an abandoned building. In his heart, Quentin hopes that Margo is inside. They enter to see a
hole in the wall that leads to an abandoned store. It's empty with no signs of Margo.
The next day in school, Jace approaches Quentin with his friends and tries to beat him up,
but he shows them Jace's unclothed picture and threatens to release it. This makes Jace
uncomfortable and scared, so he and his friends decide to leave Quentin alone. Lacey approaches
Quentin and his friends as well, to find out what happened to Margo. Everyone knows that
he was with her on her last night in town. Quentin just replies that they're trying
to find out but haven't had any success yet. He also lets her know that Margo is angry with her,
as she didn't let her know about Jace and Becca's affair. Lacey claims she had no idea,
but that her boyfriend knew. Lacey appears to be quite concerned for Margo,
and even claims that she broke up with her boyfriend when she found out. She also lets
him know that now she is without a prom date, and Ben immediately begins flirting with her.
Lacey also flirts back and says she'll be at Jace's party later. The boys seem
excited and decide to attend such a popular party now that they can
blackmail Jace so easily. But Quentin is obsessed with Margo's disappearance and
decides not to attend. He plans to continue on with the journey.
Quentin goes back to the abandoned room and sees Margo has written on the wall,
"We live in paper towns." This makes him really confused. He eventually falls asleep and sees
Margo approaching him in a red dress, begging him to come find her. Quentin is suddenly woken
up by a call. It's Marcus. He says that they're at the party and that Ben is drunk. Marcus begs
Quentin to come to help them and that they need him to get them home. Quentin arrives
with motives to search Jace's room for clues, but it appears that Becca and Jace are making
love upstairs. He then heads to the bathroom, where he is interrupted mid-pee by Lacey,
who is hiding in the tub. He joins her in the tub, and the two start discussing life. Quentin
also lets her know that he and his friends are searching for Margo. That's when Lacey claims
that everyone thinks she's just a pretty face, but she is actually going to Dartmouth in the
fall. Jace interrupts right then, giving Quentin an opportunity to go search his room. There,
he finds an atlas like the one in the abandoned store with a page missing.
After one friend pukes in the house, they head to the abandoned building once again. They look
through all the other atlases and are startled to find that Lacey has followed them. She exclaims
that she wants to know what happened to Margo as well. Just then, Quentin finds the missing page
and holds it up to the light to see that Margo has made holes in the map, pointing to where she is
headed. He hangs up the map and discovers she is headed to New York. One of his friends says that
there are so many towns there that they'll never be able to find her. Quentin then instructs him to
look for anything called "Paper Towns," or made-up towns on maps that people place to see if anyone
infringes on their copyright. That's when they find one called Agloe in New York. After this,
all of them decide to go there to find Margo. Lacey also joins them because Margo is her best
friend. They decide to go to Agloe in Quentin's mother's car but it's really far from there.
All three of them plan to find Margo and come back just in time to attend prom.
They then go to meet Marcus's girlfriend, Angela and she also decides to join them.
They then notice that a person named MRS has edited the Wikipedia page of Agloe,
and given it a population of one. Quentin knows that MRS means Margo so the five agree
to leave immediately in order to make it back by prom. They head on a road trip to New York,
and Ben, who needs to pee every half an hour, gets an emergency. On the way,
he just can't seem to control himself so is given bottles to pee in,
but spills it all in the car. Eventually, they make a six-minute stop to buy food,
drinks, and new clothes. There, they also plan out their trip stops in order to make it home in time.
At night, Quentin nearly hits a cow, but Ben spins the wheel and averts it, so they skid and decide
to stop for the night. Angela makes love with her boyfriend there. Ben and Lacey also agree
to go to prom together. Everyone is busy in their own lives except Quentin. He misses Margo a lot.
He's also wounded because of the small accident. Because of this, he has bleeding on his forehead.
On the way, Quentin only thinks about Margo. He starts to feel
better because he thinks that he will meet her soon. They all finally arrive in Agloe,
New York. They find the place on the map. Quentin recites all his feelings in his head,
hoping to say it all to Margo. He thinks he has finally solved the clue. Quentin then goes
inside the barn but it's empty. He comes out and tells his friends that Margo is not here,
so his friends ask him to leave it. They want to go back for prom instead of looking for
her. Quentin doesn't want to go and is angry that they don't want to find her. He tries to convince
everyone to continue but they don't want to. Lacey loves Margo but says that Margo would never do all
this for them. Ben and Marcus also confess that they did it only to have one last memory and a fun
road trip before they graduate. Quentin realizes that he can't stop them so he lets them go.
All of his friends go back home but Quentin continues to look for Margo. He walks around
all through the city. He decides to hitchhike to town and buys a bus ticket home. Then suddenly
he sees Margo walk by. He's shocked and runs after her. He even calls out to her. Margo
turns around to see him there and is surprised. She then tells him that she deliberately left
clues for him to find in order to let him know she's okay. She claims that she left
those clues to warn him not to join her. Quentin takes this opportunity to say that he loves her,
and Margo is surprised. She responds by saying that everyone likes the idea of her but no one
really likes her. She then buys him a drink and explains that she wasn't made for town life.
Margo claims that this is the perfect place to lose oneself and find solitude. Afterward,
she asks him what he is doing here. Quentin doesn't really know the answer to that.
Margo then explains that she had already planned to disappear after graduation,
but Jace and Becca's cheating just sped it up. She offers that he join
her too because she knows that Quentin loves her since childhood. But Quentin
decides against it. He wants to go to Duke and follow his original plan. The two hug,
and that's when he tells her that her sister misses her to which Margo replies that they
talk every day on the phone. After that Quentin feels bad once more as he realizes
that miracles never happen. He understands that you have to create miracles on your own.
Quentin also realizes that he was wrong about a lot of things, even about Margo. After this
realization, his mother becomes immensely happy to see him turn into a mature and practical man. He
used to believe everyone gets miracles. Even now, he thinks that some kind of miracle is
waiting for him. Quentin finally heads back in time to join all of his friends at prom,
and the five of them dance and enjoy themselves. At last, they all separate to pursue higher
education. In the end, Quentin feels that not all of us win the lottery or marry royalty. But that
doesn't mean we won't have amazing adventures and meet exceptional people. He finally realizes that
the trick is to notice your miracles before it's too late. The movie finally ends with
him saying that Margo is the talk of the town. Some say they saw her doing a play on Broadway
while another claims to have seen her giving surf lessons in Malibu. Maybe it's all true.