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A review by emilyusuallyreading
Looking for Alaska by John Green
3.0
What I Liked
I adored Alaska as a character. Or, at least, Alaska as described by Pudge. Back and forth, chapter to chapter, I was debating in my mind whether I liked her or hated her. And she hit the nail on the head when she told Pudge, "Don't you know who you love, Pudge? You love the girl who makes you laugh and shows you porn and drinks wine with you. You don't love the crazy, sullen b----." And while I didn't necessarily love the girl who introduced Pudge to breaking practically every rule that existed at his boarding school, I did like the spontaneous, insane fireball that was Alaska's personality. I didn't at all like the moody, angry, bitter character that seemed to manipulate people left and right. As a flawed character, I thought Alaska was excellently written.
The structure of the novel was amazing. It begins with "one hundred thirty-six days before" and counts down from there. From the very first page I was agonizing over what was the after. (I'm proud to say that I guessed it from about page 20.)
On the after.
What I Didn't Like
There is a huge part of me that is disturbed when YA writers feel this need to paint teenagers as deviants (that makes me sound so old, but I'm only 21, okay?). Smoking, premarital sex, drinking, and even minor drug use are painted as quirky and a normal part of the young adult experience. I totally disagree that substance abuse is necessary for a "coming of age" tale. This is the biggest thing that makes me hesitate to share this novel with my future children or with a younger sibling. (In reality, I knew maybe one or two people in high school that excessively drank and smoked. Maybe I was extremely sheltered or maybe breaking all the rules is just a faded stereotype of young adulthood and not actually true. I have no idea.)
Sometimes I feel like John Green's characters are a little too adorably quirky. Cute nicknames, constantly quoting poetry and famous last words, memorizing the capitals and populations of countries for the fun of it. (This is something that also bothered me about The Fault in Our Stars). Every single character has an extremely unique quirk about them (except for the occasionally two-dimensional "cool kids" who are described as being obsessed with their hair and having "beady eyes"). I enjoy reading about quirky characters; I'm a pretty weird person myself. But sometimes it feels like Green pours all of these bizarre habits into his characters in a way that they become these incredibly intellectual, almost alien teenagers that happen to have insane and "normal" vices of sex, cigarettes, and booze.
I adored Alaska as a character. Or, at least, Alaska as described by Pudge. Back and forth, chapter to chapter, I was debating in my mind whether I liked her or hated her. And she hit the nail on the head when she told Pudge, "Don't you know who you love, Pudge? You love the girl who makes you laugh and shows you porn and drinks wine with you. You don't love the crazy, sullen b----." And while I didn't necessarily love the girl who introduced Pudge to breaking practically every rule that existed at his boarding school, I did like the spontaneous, insane fireball that was Alaska's personality. I didn't at all like the moody, angry, bitter character that seemed to manipulate people left and right. As a flawed character, I thought Alaska was excellently written.
The structure of the novel was amazing. It begins with "one hundred thirty-six days before" and counts down from there. From the very first page I was agonizing over what was the after. (I'm proud to say that I guessed it from about page 20.)
On the after.
Spoiler
I lost a friend to suicide when we were both 15. I appreciate more than words can say the way the novel handled this topic. There is no certainty when you lose a friend in this way... sometimes there isn't even certainty about whether they killed themselves or were just being stupid. I really liked how they listed the symptoms of suicide and tried to measure them up, but when these things are measured up in real life, it's hard to actually identify warnings with any kind of structure or understanding. All that's left is blame and survivor's guilt and confusion and stumbling attempts to bring one's life back to normalcy. Looking for Alaska is one of the best approaches to teenage suicide that I've ever read in a YA novel.What I Didn't Like
There is a huge part of me that is disturbed when YA writers feel this need to paint teenagers as deviants (that makes me sound so old, but I'm only 21, okay?). Smoking, premarital sex, drinking, and even minor drug use are painted as quirky and a normal part of the young adult experience. I totally disagree that substance abuse is necessary for a "coming of age" tale. This is the biggest thing that makes me hesitate to share this novel with my future children or with a younger sibling. (In reality, I knew maybe one or two people in high school that excessively drank and smoked. Maybe I was extremely sheltered or maybe breaking all the rules is just a faded stereotype of young adulthood and not actually true. I have no idea.)
Sometimes I feel like John Green's characters are a little too adorably quirky. Cute nicknames, constantly quoting poetry and famous last words, memorizing the capitals and populations of countries for the fun of it. (This is something that also bothered me about The Fault in Our Stars). Every single character has an extremely unique quirk about them (except for the occasionally two-dimensional "cool kids" who are described as being obsessed with their hair and having "beady eyes"). I enjoy reading about quirky characters; I'm a pretty weird person myself. But sometimes it feels like Green pours all of these bizarre habits into his characters in a way that they become these incredibly intellectual, almost alien teenagers that happen to have insane and "normal" vices of sex, cigarettes, and booze.