Looking For Alaska
I first learned of John Green when I came across this quote
This book reminded me of nothing so much as A Separate Peace, which I read in ninth grade and remember only vaguely. But I can certainly envision writing an essay comparing and contrasting these two books. I'm not going to do that, as it would require me to re-read A Separate Peace and my reading list is already far too long.
Looking for Alaska follows Miles "Pudge" Halter at his junior year at a new boarding school. The book is divided into two parts, "the before" and "the after", which basically correspond with the two semesters of his junior year.
In the before, Miles meets his roommate, Chip "The Colonel", and his friends, Takumi and Alaska. He immediately falls head over heels for Alaska who is wild and impulsive. She's smart and does well in school, but spends a lot of time drinking and smoking. She has drastic mood swings and will become angry, depressed, or withdrawn quite suddenly. In short, she turns Miles' world upside down and he spends months pining after her. In his words,
In the after, Miles and The Colonel try to make sense of Alaska's fatal car accident. Was it suicide? Was she just drunk? Did she fall asleep at the wheel? Why didn't they stop her from getting in her car that night? Would it have happened if she and Miles hadn't hooked up on a drunken dare?
Miles' guilt over Alaska's sudden death is what reminded me so strongly of A Separate Peace, though I believe the two characters deal with this guilt in different ways. (It really has been a while since I read A Separate Peace, so I don't remember exactly). The boarding school setting helps drive the similarities home. As does the fact that Miles feels like he'll never quite live up to Alaska. She's a better student, tutoring him in math, and he admires how free she is without ever noticing that she's free in the Janis Joplin sense of the word. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.
This was a good book and a fast read. There were some incredibly sad passages in the after, as well as a good bit of philosophizing. Miles is taking a comparative religion class covering Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, so many of his attempts to make sense of Alaska's death are in the context of that class. It's not terribly deep, but it does illustrate Miles' struggle pretty well.
I'd recommend this book if you enjoy YA lit and are looking for something you can read in a couple of days. Just bear in mind that it is aimed at a high school audience.
"...because nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff. We don't have to be like, 'Oh yeah that purse is okay' or like, 'Yeah, I like that band's early stuff.' Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can't-control-yourself-love it. Hank, when people call people nerds, mostly what they are saying is, 'You like stuff', which is just not a good insult at all, like 'You are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness'."There's also this one:
Saying 'I notice you're a nerd' is like saying, 'Hey, I notice that you'd rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you'd rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that you believe that there are things that matter more than the arrest record of Lindsay Lohan. Why is that?'How fantastically true are these quotes? (answer: very) I immediately knew that I must know more about this man. And one of the first things I learned was that he has written three YA novels: Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, and Paper Towns. So I went to buy Looking for Alaska and sat down to read it.
This book reminded me of nothing so much as A Separate Peace, which I read in ninth grade and remember only vaguely. But I can certainly envision writing an essay comparing and contrasting these two books. I'm not going to do that, as it would require me to re-read A Separate Peace and my reading list is already far too long.
Looking for Alaska follows Miles "Pudge" Halter at his junior year at a new boarding school. The book is divided into two parts, "the before" and "the after", which basically correspond with the two semesters of his junior year.
In the before, Miles meets his roommate, Chip "The Colonel", and his friends, Takumi and Alaska. He immediately falls head over heels for Alaska who is wild and impulsive. She's smart and does well in school, but spends a lot of time drinking and smoking. She has drastic mood swings and will become angry, depressed, or withdrawn quite suddenly. In short, she turns Miles' world upside down and he spends months pining after her. In his words,
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 a hurricaneShe has an intensity that both frightens and intrigues Miles. He's never entirely sure how to handle her.
In the after, Miles and The Colonel try to make sense of Alaska's fatal car accident. Was it suicide? Was she just drunk? Did she fall asleep at the wheel? Why didn't they stop her from getting in her car that night? Would it have happened if she and Miles hadn't hooked up on a drunken dare?
Miles' guilt over Alaska's sudden death is what reminded me so strongly of A Separate Peace, though I believe the two characters deal with this guilt in different ways. (It really has been a while since I read A Separate Peace, so I don't remember exactly). The boarding school setting helps drive the similarities home. As does the fact that Miles feels like he'll never quite live up to Alaska. She's a better student, tutoring him in math, and he admires how free she is without ever noticing that she's free in the Janis Joplin sense of the word. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.
This was a good book and a fast read. There were some incredibly sad passages in the after, as well as a good bit of philosophizing. Miles is taking a comparative religion class covering Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, so many of his attempts to make sense of Alaska's death are in the context of that class. It's not terribly deep, but it does illustrate Miles' struggle pretty well.
I'd recommend this book if you enjoy YA lit and are looking for something you can read in a couple of days. Just bear in mind that it is aimed at a high school audience.
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