Book Review: Looking for Alaska

"How will ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering?--AY" 


Well, Fault in Our Stars wasn't bad, so how about some more John Green.  And because I can hear the responses to that phrase, yes, I am band-wagonning.  Why is that a bad thing?  I'm sorry I never happened upon John Green books until 8 months before the movie came out. Isn't part of the point of a movie to bring exposure to an author?



For our next foray into John Green books, I read his first book, Looking for Alaska.  By the way, I learned that my copy of the book just cut off part of the cover, and that is smoke from a candle on the front.  I thought it was a cigarette, which would also fit, because they do a lot of smoking.

Miles Halter is heading off to boarding school by his own choice.  Friendless and uneventful, he's ready to leave behind his high school and find something new.  He wants to seek for, as Rabelais puts it, the Great Perhaps.  And he may find it at Culver Creek, where he meets Alaska--enigmatic and gosh-darned gorgeous, but also wounded.  From Alaska, he gains a second mission. Learn what Bolivar's labyrinth is, and how to escape it. 

Throughout the book, I got the distinct impression that I was reading Catcher in the Rye while watching Dead Poets' Society.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but maybe that will give you an idea as to its tone and content matter. I quite enjoyed it, and once again, I am left saying that John Green writes Young Adult literature that really treats Young Adults like adults.  Teenagers aren't stupid, and really a lot of YA literature, though fun and exciting to read, is an insult to teenagers.  It vastly underestimates the teen's ability to feel, think and experience the world.  John Green doesn't ever do that.

Things I liked:

1) The thoughts and themes were deep and good to think about
2) Exquisite writing style
3) Well written and funny, lovable, complicated characters in general. And I'm a sucker for a good character-driven novel.
4) The aforementioned lack of underestimation.

Things I didn't like:

1) How it changed to present tense prose halfway through the book.  At least there seemed to  be some consciousness to that choice, but we all know how I feel about present tense prose.
2) Writing out a dialects phonetically
3) Why is it that in order to live and learn about the world, teenagers obviously have to drink, fornicate and smoke?  I never did that as a teenager, and I feel like I grew up all right.  So, I wish they didn't feel the need to include that so much.
4) LANGUAGE.  Wow.  So, remember how I said that Fault in Our Stars could keep its PG-13 because it only dropped one f-bomb.  Yeah, Looking for Alaska drops it fairly regularly.
5) How it left a gaping hole in my stomach.  No tears on this one, just feeling like you've been shot.

I would give it four stars, but sometimes, we don't need to know about what goes on in bedrooms, and I don't even feel like it added anything. It pays the penalty for that and gets three stars.

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