Looking for Alaska

Looking for Alaska

Author John Green Published 2005-03-03 Type Fiction Genre Drama Themes Coming of age, Death, Friendship, Suicide, Teen Age Group Teen

Looking for Alaska is a teen coming of age novel written by John Green and published on 2005-03-03. The book was intended to be made into a movie, but, after years of stalling, it was eventually adapted into a miniseries in 2019. Due to descriptions of teens drinking, smoking, and having sex, it became one of the American Library Association's most-challenged books.

The story follows Miles "Pudge" Halter, a skinny teen nerd who has grown bored of his simple home life and seeks a bigger challenge, in a distant boarding school. Once there he discovers that most of the kids are smarter than he is, and have with richer families, but he is still able to make friends with a few other students who aren't stuck up. In particular there is Alaska Young, a beautiful and teen girl who is way out of his league and keeps getting him into trouble with her constant desire to stave off boredom with pranks, sex (but not with him), and drugs.

Personal

Own?	No.
Read?	Yes. Audiobook read by Wil Wheaton
Finished	2024-03-19.

I first heard about John Green through his YouTube videos with Hank Green and was surprised to learn years later he was also a published author. I didn't look much into his books, but, while searching for a new challenged book to read, his name caught my eye, so I decided to try it out. I was impressed.

Review

Overall:

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The three main characters are all well-written and believable teens. They get into mischief, abuse substances out of boredom, make poorly-thought-out mistakes, get embarrassed by sex, all the usual stuff.
• There are several passages which I thought were cleverly written.
• Green does a good job describing how people react when a friend dies — a combination of sorrow, guilt, and anger. Also, I like that, while Green doesn't leave the reader completely hanging, he doesn't solve the mystery for them either.

Bad

• Alaska Young, though a fully realized character in her own right, still functions largely as a manic pixie dream girl. I assume she is meant to have undiagnosed bipolar disorder.
• Occasionally, I would read a simile or idiom that felt a bit forced or out of place. For example, there is a passage where Pudge compares Alaska to heavy rain, but it would have made more sense if it were used several chapters earlier, when it was actually raining.
• Having the Colonel's mom cover for a prank is one thing, having Pudge's father take part in a prank seemed a bit far fetched.
• The slow reveal of events as the teens search for clues is poorly paced causing the book to drag a bit near the end.
• The indestructible soul Pudge ascribes to Alaska in the end, while it fits the book's theme and the character's maturity, is still a bit annoying.

Ugly

• Nothing.

Representation

Strong female character?	Pass	Alaska is confident, intelligent, and eager to change her world for the better.
Bechdel test?	Pass	Alaska and Lara talk to each other.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	Takumi Hikohito is Japanese, but he's a minor character
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Quotes

• You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.
• I wanted to be one of those people who have streaks to maintain, who scorch the ground with their intensity. But for now, at least I knew such people, and they needed me, just like comets need tails.
• Because memories fall apart, too. And then you're left with nothing, left not even with a ghost but with its shadow. In the beginning, she had haunted me, haunted my dreams, but even now, just weeks later, she was slipping away, falling apart in my memory and everyone else's, dying again.
• For a moment, she was quiet. Then she grabbed my hand, whispered, "Run run run run run," and took off, pulling me behind her.
• But we can't know better until knowing better is useless.
• I finally decided that people believed in an afterlife because they couldn't bear not to.
• They love their hair because they're not smart enough to love something more interesting.
• She's cute, I thought, but you don't need to like a girl who treats you like you're ten: You've already got a mom.

Links