Quentin is the novel’s narrator and protagonist. He is a senior in high school, and the novel centers on his attempt to discover the fate of his neighbor, Margo Roth Spiegelman, who disappears after a memorable outing with Quentin one night. Quentin is a by-the-book “nerd”, with a fear of breaking the rules. Both of his parents are therapists, so Quentin is thought of as “well-adjusted.” He has had a crush on Margo since they were children. As he begins his search for Margo, Quentin begins to re-evaluate his perceptions of others, both his friends and supposed enemies, and learns to recognize the complexity of other people’s lives. The search for Margo forces Quentin to investigate the connections between people, and highlights the problems of communication between human beings. He learns how hard it is to truly understand one another. 

Margo is Quentin’s next door neighbor. She is a free-spirited teenager known for her eccentric adventures and extravagant schemes. She and Quentin have not been close since childhood, though they attend the same high school, live next door to one another and are in the same grade. She has an unhappy home life, and feels stifled in her Orlando community, calling it a “paper town” to suggest the artificial nature of its existence.