Looking for Alaska

4.5

I decided to read this book after countless recommendations from my friends, who quoted and referenced it often (all the “I go to seek a Great Perhaps” is getting really annoying tbh). After only a few “chapters” in, I was kicking myself for not reading it sooner. It is written in a style that gives me the impression that the main character is sitting down with me, a year or two later, and personally telling me the story. It makes a great deal of literary and historical references but always explicitly states them as such and never comes off as pretentious. It's simply a joy to read (if joy is the right word, since often it produces emotions that are anything but joy). Above all, it's real. It does not censor itself, but cuts right through the crap and tells it exactly like it happened. Even if the truth is embarrassing.

I said “chapters” because the book is divided up rather unconventionally; instead of following a linear progression (chapter 1, chapter 2, ... chapter 30, etc etc etc), each section is titled as “one hundred twenty-seven days before” or “forty-six days after,” and so on. This is because the entire book revolves around one central event that occurs roughly in its center, and as it is told from the perspective of the main character, Miles “Pudge” Halter, time exists only as a distance before or after this event.

Alaska was the most fascinating character to me, something I think John Green intended. I was hooked by her just as Pudge was–she continually intrigued me, made me laugh, frustrated me, mystified me. (I re-read her line “Ya'll smoke to enjoy it, I smoke to die” several times. She's just so meta.). I am hardly ever affected by character deaths but as soon as I got a few pages into the “After” section I had to put the book down for a few minutes to absorb what I had just read. I was actually in a minor stage of denial for a few pages. I kept thinking, “Alaska's not really dead, is she?” Maybe John Green was trying to pull off another Paper Towns kind of story-line. When I came to accept it, I shared Pudge's and The Colonel's (Chip Martin) desparation to find out WHY.

At first I felt a little gypped by the ending: was her death an accident or was it a suicide? But after I thought it through for a while, I decided that it was better that John Green left us not knowing. Why? The world is full of mysteries. Not everything that happens in life is completely resolved (sad truth).

While it's not the most entertaining, out of the entire novels I've read in my life, Looking for Alaska definitely falls somewhere in the top 10 or 50 or 100 of the best written coming-of-age novels. I would definitely recommend this book to any age group, but especially anyone who is interested in writing and wants to see an example of great literature.