Looking for Alaska by John Green

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 (Francois 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.

Why I Picked It Up

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Like many teens, I grew up on John Green—both reading his books and watching his Crash Course videos when cramming for AP Bio exams. Although he's been very successful in his author career, his first book is still my favorite.

In picking it up recently, I was nervous. I'd recently revisited a few titles that didn't hold up to my teenage memory! In the end, I did love Looking for Alaska and connect to it still, but in different ways than I did as a younger reader—which is exactly how it should be.

I was captivated by some of the existential conversations (lol) and sticky Southern atmosphere. I was less into the romanticization of Alaska, the love interest, by our narrator, Pudge, which is arguably the point of the book anyway. She's the epitome of Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but that's where John Green excels, both in painting portraits in the first place but also making fun of awkward teenage boys falling into the trap.

About the Book

The plot is a relatively standard coming-of-age that's powerful, snappy, and funny in near-perfect proportion. John Green at his peak, in my opinion.

Pudge moves to a boarding school in Alabama and falls into chaos with his roommate, the Colonel, and their friend Alaska—the sexy, cigarette-smoking reader girl who's damaged and provocative and worldly. The book counts down in a "[X] DAYS UNTIL" mystery, and there's a before and an after in its events, a mystery that keeps you flipping pages. And on a day-to-day mundanity level, Green does a fantastic job making you invested in the brilliance and idiocy of the teens running around.

Pudge's development is also great, in my opinion. Especially in the revelations he's forced to have about Alaska—he's easy to root for, fascinating to listen to, and is endearing in many ways. He's a little dorky. He has his first brushes with some of the worst parts of adulthood in this book, and does so with a lot of the grace he can muster.

“There comes a time when we realize that our parents cannot save themselves or save us, that everyone who wades through time eventually gets dragged out to sea by the undertow- that, in short, we are all going.”

For most readers, Looking for Alaska would be the first look at John Green's particular bag of tricks. Pudge loves to collect famous peoples' last words, for example, so plenty of quotes are woven throughout the text.

“Thomas Edison's last words were 'It's very beautiful over there'. I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful.”

John Green has a style that's warm and intellectual and amusing, with an edge of angst and despair that feels very teenaged. His characters are ever-so-slightly punctuated to be quirky, but not too heavily. He loves to layer in references or fictional fascinations. Some of the quotes might feel familiar to you because they were all quite popular on Tumblr back in the day. Ever-so-slightly melodramatic, and perfectly justified for being seventeen and a little lost.

“That is the fear: I have lost something important, and I cannot find it, and I need it. It is fear like if someone lost his glasses and went to the glasses store and they told him that the world had run out of glasses and he would just have to do without.”

“Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia.”

“I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane.”

It's fabulously vivid, and the dialogue is fantastic. I loved the practical jokes, and think John Green is so clever. Plus, I loved how steeped in atmosphere Looking for Alaska is; it feels so true to a particular version of the South, one with trickling showerheads and cement school floors. Upon rereading, I probably loved its atmosphere most.

Unfortunately, it's also been banned to hell (although I think the content fits squarely into coming-of-age curiosities rather than anything worth pearl-clutching over. I am, obviously, very strongly against book banning—but even skimming for being "appropriate," I think the sexual, substance, etc. content in here is perfectly contextual and necessary.)

Example: Its sexual scene is that at one point, the girl Pudge is half-heartedly dating offers to try to give him a blowjob, and has absolutely no idea how to do it. So she puts it in and then the two of them just sit, and it's played for humor and how awkward the scenario is and how the two of them have no idea what they're doing, which is meant to be teenaged coming-of-age rather than erotic. If the lawmakers in Alabama and Texas and Florida think that's corrupting teenagers more than the content on their phones and on TV, they are seriously kidding themselves.

Overall Thoughts

I loved and love Looking for Alaska. It's fantastic at what it's trying to do, it's entertaining and impactful to read, and I would like many teens to read it. John Green collected awards and a great literary reputation for this one, and it feels deserved! I'll reread again at some point in the future, but I'm very grateful this one lived up to my memory.

PS. I've also listened to this one on audio before and enjoyed it plenty.

For fans of:

Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn; Winger by Andrew Smith; The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky; etc.