Green, John: Looking for Alaska
Looking for Alaska (2005)
Written by: John Green
Genre: YA/Fiction
Pages: 221 (Trade Paperback)
So I'll be honest: I don't remember how I first heard about this book. I don't remember WHEN I heard about this book. I don't even remember why I stuck it on my Amazon wishlist to begin with, but I did, and it kept sitting there and sitting there and I finally decided to add it to my order. After all, it does have an appealing cover, fascinating title, and the ratings seemed pretty solid. And that's really the only thing I can tell you about this book in terms of why I got it. In the future, I'll try to remember to take better notes. ;)
The premise: Going to BN.com for this one, which is also on the back of the book: Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter is done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave "the Great Perhaps" even more (François Rabelais, poet). He heads off to the sometimes crazy and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young. She is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart. Then. . . . After. Nothing is ever the same.
Review style: two sections, what I liked and what I didn't. This is one of those books that require spoilers, so if you're avoiding them, simply skip to the "My Rating" section at the bottom of the review.
What I Liked
This book is really easy to get into. The first person, present tense POV grabs you pretty quickly and makes for a breezy ride through the book itself. It's not an "easy" read, but it is a fast read and it captures your attention. Of course, Miles, aka Pudge, is an interesting yet human character. His fascination with last words is a unique trait, one that's made kind of funny because while he's fascinated with peoples' last words, he's not interested in the people or their works. In other words, he'd love to know Shakespeare's last words, but doesn't give a rat's ass about reading Shakespeare's poetry or plays.
I also liked how he was able to capitalize on the need to get something more out of his teenage existence. I think any teenager, unless they're in love with their current social life, would understand that pull for something MORE. For something BETTER, and Pudge is lucky enough to seek it out.
The structure of this book is rather interesting. On one hand, I've seen some reviews where readers have stated they saw what was coming a mile away, but I didn't. Knowing that SOMETHING would happen and getting that countdown added to the tension, and I thought Green did a good job of giving us enough distraction that we thought the IT that divided the book would be something else, like getting caught for that MAJOR prank, or Pudge and Alaska hooking up, or maybe Pudge getting kicked out of school. There were so many possibilities that I kept ignoring the little clues about Alaska's horrible driving and didn't even consider the possibility that she'd die in a car wreck until the page before it was revealed, when the author WANTED you to know she was racing off to meet her doom. And I think that's good work. I was so distracted with everything else that was going on that I was never concerned for the physical safety of the characters, so for me to be able to be distracted like that takes a somewhat expert hand.
However, any readers who were OBSESSED with the fact that these kids are "living in sin" with drinking and smoking and sex were bound to see the climax coming a mile away, probably because said readers are looking for some kind of punishment for these characters' "sinful" actions and are looking for a message of the after-school variety, like "Drinking and driving is bad."
Note the use of quotation marks. I do this because 1) I'm not one of those readers and 2) this book sparked a LOT of controversy because of the characters' behavior and I'm pretty sure this book has been banned on more than one occasion because of it.
But what I like about this book ISN'T that it's a morality tale. It's up to the reader to deal or not deal with the characters' behavior, but the point of the book is really human, about what it means not just to be a teenager, but to find your way out of suffering, to figure out what it means to be on this Earth. Pretty heady stuff for a YA novel, and one might make the argument its force-fed at the end, but I think it works: Pudge and Colonel and everyone else have to find a way to deal with Alaska's death, with all the blame that goes with it and the mystery surrounding her motivations. They're lucky in that by the end, they've pieced together what freaked Alaska out so much and made her drive despite her intoxicated state. In life, people aren't always so lucky, and those questions can leave a gaping wound the characters had to deal with for a small portion of the book, a hole that threatened to tear everyone apart.
So to me, this book isn't about the consequences of drinking and driving, smoking too young, or having sex at too young an age. It's about growing up and all that it entails: the good, the bad, and the ugly. The ugly is death, losing someone who's too young to die (ironically, Young was Alaska's last name). The bad is indulging in behavior that just MIGHT be too old for you and learning how to deal with it, which leads to the good, which is growing up itself and learning how to live with others in various relationships rather than being so centered on yourself. That's a hard lesson Pudge has to learn, and I like how he was forced to deal with who he was and who Alaska really was, despite his constant denial.
There's a lot I liked about this book. So many sections made me laugh out loud, and while I wasn't so emotionally invested that Alaska's death upset me, I was invested enough to care about how the characters handled it.
What I Didn't Like
Now here's where I sound like a hypocrite: I wanted there to be consequences. But NOT consequences for the drinking and driving (we got that, and if we didn't, I doubt I would've wanted it), the sex or the smoking or any of that. No, I wanted some consequences for the PRANKS, and if not actual consequences, then some kind of acknowledgment.
Here's the thing: Green does such a good job focusing on the pranks and what could happen if any or all of them get caught that we don't see Alaska's death coming. But because of that, it builds up an expectation that the pranks must play a role in that climax and or at least be acknowledged afterward.
For example: I thought the reason Alaska flipped out was because she'd forgotten to sign back in after she "went out of town" to be with Jake (when instead she was helping with the prank), or something along those lines, something that would get them all caught. I also thought that perhaps the climax had something to do with them getting caught and Pudge would be forced to do what Colonel and Alaska did for him earlier in the book, which was take the fall for everyone, you know?
So that didn't happen, but once Alaska died, we didn't hear a PEEP about those progress reports Alaska sent out, and I would've thought that SOMEONE would've said SOMETHING, especially since Colonel made it clear to one of the Weekend Warriors that it wasn't over with the hair dye, and to expect something else (stupid). And I'm disappointed we didn't hear A THING, even if it was the Eagle taking all of them in and saying he knows what they did but is giving them a break due to Alaska's death. ANYTHING but what we got, which was absolutely nothing.
Which made the fact that the Eagle was so willing to let the latter stripper prank slide a little more annoying, because I think he wouldn't have been QUITE as forgiving if he'd known/heard about the progress reports, and also, it was, while a nice and fluffy feeling for the end of the book, a little too easy.
My need for consequences has little to do with the need to see the characters punished so much as it has to do with the narrative need for resolution after such a huge build-up. We got the build-up, the promise of "to be continued" (a nice parallel to Pudge and Alaska hooking up), but then the rug was taken out from our feet without ANY acknowledgment. Almost too much the imitative fallacy there, but oh well. I still enjoyed the book.
One other nitpick I had was why Alaska was so flirty with Pudge. Not because being flirty meant she might be betraying Jake on some level, but I never saw our narrator as any kind of attractive, you know? Flirting with friends because you're friends, I get, but there's seemed to be more than that, which I didn't. Oh, I got why Pudge was attracted to her, despite her bouts of sullen bitchiness, but the other way around? I never really saw it.
Sometimes I did forget these kids were in high school instead of college, which pushed my suspension of disbelief, but I'm willing to believe this may be a natural part of high schoolers growing up. Personally, I was a bit sheltered growing up, and I don't believe my experience is the norm by any means.
Also, not getting the The Catcher in the Rye comparisons. However, I have not read The Catcher in the Rye since I was a junior in high school, so yeah, it's been a while. I barely remember that book, even though I read it at the time because I wanted to. :)
My Rating
Worth the Cash: it's a pretty good read, and my only warning is if you're of a more stiff, conservative nature that really wants books to have a certain type of MESSAGE and the sex, smoking, and drinking will bother you, then it's probably best you don't read this book. Everyone else, have at it. I enjoyed it very much, and finished in a day. The prose is smooth and easy to read, and it reminds me on certain levels of what it was like to think like a high schooler again, in terms of intellectualism anyway. I love how the characters had to learn how to grow up and what that meant, and in the book, the book delivers a positive message, though likely not the kind that certain readers might demand. Yes, this book has been banned, and while I understand why, I don't believe any book should be banned. Kids deserve a chance to read what they want and assimilate it for their own lives and so they can take their own lessons from it. I think most people will enjoy reading this book, provided they read it for what it is, not what they think it should be.
Cover Commentary: The cover I feature at the top of the review I absolutely love. It's the whole smoke from the candle thing and what kept drawing my eye when I saw it on my wishlist. The cover behind the cut is, I supposed, a newer cover, and while it's probably more popular with teens because it shows a real girl's face, it doesn't appeal to me nearly as much and I probably would've ignored the book if I'd seen it sporting that cover. That's me. :) I do wonder if the "real girl" cover would appeal more to girls than boys, because this is a book for both sexes, and the black smoke cover I think would appeal to both sexes more than the real girl cover would. Thoughts?
Next up: Unclean Spirits by M.L.N. Hanover