Paper Towns: Part 2

by John Green
When his old friend (and crush) Margo disappears, Quentin tries to find out what happened to her by following the clues she left behind.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Here are links to our lists for other books by John Green: Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Will Grayson, Will Grayson, The Fault in Our Stars, Turtles All the Way Down
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. decipher
    make out the meaning of
    And so I have this test, and I have to write in a language I don’t know using an alphabet I can’t decipher.
  2. fathom
    come to understand
    I was extraordinarily confused, because the one thing happening in my universe was Mr. Jiminez writing on the blackboard, and I couldn’t fathom how he could be both an auditory and a visual presence in my life.
  3. impunity
    exemption from punishment or loss
    RIIAPAW was a fifteen-year-old Buick that had been driven with impunity by all three of Ben’s older siblings and was, by the time it reached Ben, composed primarily out of duct tape and spackle.
  4. meager
    deficient in amount or quality or extent
    Ben would turn the key and the engine would turn over a couple times, like a fish on land making its last, meager, dying flops.
  5. awestruck
    having a feeling of mixed reverence and wonder and dread
    He was just shaking his head slowly, awestruck.
  6. peripheral
    on or near an edge or constituting an outer boundary
    And I was just about to say something when, in my peripheral vision, I saw a large individual running toward us at a full sprint.
  7. salacious
    suggestive of or tending to moral looseness
    We left him eleven messages, each more annoying and salacious than the last.
  8. compel
    force somebody to do something
    “We’ll get the word out, of course, but she can’t be compelled to come home; you shouldn’t necessarily expect her back under your roof in the near future.”
  9. pummel
    strike, usually with the fist
    Ben started pummeling buttons, shouting, “Eat it, goblin!
  10. jamb
    a vertical side piece of a door or window frame
    Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!
  11. sheepish
    marked by docility or stupidity or meekness or timidity
    I nodded sheepishly.
  12. desolate
    providing no shelter or sustenance
    Pseudovisions had been pointed out to me a couple times before on drives with my parents, but I’d never seen one so desolate.
  13. leverage
    the mechanical advantage gained by a machine on a fulcrum
    He puts his foot up against the wall to give himself extra leverage as he pulls, and then all at once they collapse onto me, Radar’s sweat-soaked T-shirt pressed up against my face.
  14. acceleration
    the act of increasing the speed
    His acceleration continues as he approaches the board
  15. brunt
    the main part, especially of a force or shock
    and then utterly without fear, he leaps up at the last possible second, twists his body sideways—his shoulder out to bear the brunt of the force—and slams into the wood.
  16. perpetually
    everlastingly; for all time
    On each calendar, it is perpetually February of 1986.
  17. morbid
    suggesting the horror of death and decay
    Okay, don’t be so morbid.
  18. cavalier
    showing a lack of concern or seriousness
    “You’re being kind of cavalier about it.”
  19. petty
    small and of little importance
    ...still have room to worry about such petty, ridiculous crap as whether the guy in the SUV behind me thought I was an excessively cautious driver.
  20. plaintive
    expressing sorrow
    The day passed as it always did—in slow motion, with a thousand plaintive glances at the clock.
  21. nonsensical
    having no intelligible meaning
    I tried to read “Song of Myself” again when I got home that night, but despite Dr. Holden’s advice, it still turned into a jumble of nonsensical words.
  22. congregate
    come together, usually for a purpose
    There are a lot of lakes down there, and wherever there are lakes in Florida, there are rich people to congregate around them, so it seemed an unlikely place for a pseudovision.
  23. multiplicity
    the property of having more than one part or entity
    I’d been focused on what had become of her, but now with my head trying to understand the multiplicity of grass and her smell from the blanket still in my throat, I realized that the most important question was who I was looking for.
  24. ubiquity
    the state of being everywhere at once
    Like a metaphor rendered incomprehensible by its ubiquity, there was room enough in what she had left me for endless imaginings, for an infinite set of Margos.
  25. cacophonous
    having an unpleasant sound
    Maybe she had sat here in the cacophonous darkness and felt some kind of desperation take her over, and maybe she found it impossible to unthink the thought of death.
  26. superficial
    only concerned with what is apparent or obvious
    “Do you think I’m superficial?”
  27. relinquish
    release, as from one's grip
    I grabbed the sword’s tip and tugged, but Ben refused to relinquish it.
  28. humanitarian
    of or relating to the promotion of popular welfare
    “Radar, your failure to bop that lovely honeybunny is the greatest humanitarian tragedy of our time.”
  29. sentimentality
    extravagant or affected feeling or emotion
    Great people, my parents, but prone to bouts of crippling sentimentality.
  30. deplorable
    bringing or deserving severe rebuke or censure
    And his behavior was deplorable.
  31. obfuscation
    confusion resulting from failure to understand
    It was dishonest to act like Margo hadn’t participated in her own obfuscation.
  32. rural
    of or relating to the countryside as opposed to the city
    The moment Mom got home from work on Friday, I told her that I was going to a concert with Radar and then proceeded to drive out to rural Seminole County to see Collier Farms.
  33. nostalgic
    unhappy about being away and longing for familiar things
    I was becoming nostalgic for Chuck Parson.
  34. mock
    treat with contempt
    O God of Vehicular Justice, why dost thou mock me?
  35. albatross
    something that hinders or handicaps
    Minivan, you albatross around my neck!
Created on Wed Jul 29 17:20:20 EDT 2015 (updated Tue Apr 17 09:51:25 EDT 2018)

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