First Impressions
The first thing I see is the big, gold medal embossed to the front. Looking for Alaska won the Michael L. Printz Award, so immediately my expectations are high for this book. I mean, you'd have to be really confident with the book to put the medal on the cover in a way that it outshines everything else on the cover. The minimalist design is definitely popular these days, but I think this is too simple. This puff of smoke could be anything and you don't even need Photoshop to accomplish it. Just go on escapemotions.com or even deviantart. I know there's an app for smoke art too. I'm not too keen on the glossy black cover paper either. I've left a lot of fingerprints on the paper and it bothers me. I'm OCD like that.
Plot
Looking for Alaska is divided into two parts - Before and After. Miles Halter is a 16 year old boy in Florida with no friends, so decides to go to a boarding school, that his father had also attended, in search of "the Great Perhaps". We meat some great characters likes Chip Martin, Takumi Hikohito, Lara Buterskaya and of course Alaska Young. Alaska is the complete opposite of Miles - she's impulsive, loud and can go from happy to flirty to moody to hysterical in a matter of seconds. Now let me say, this boarding school is nothing like Hogwarts. Just in case you were expecting some magic. Nope. No magic here. This is a slice of life novel that follows Miles for one school year as he makes friends, enemies and falls in love.
That's the Before. Now for the After... Well, no spoilers here.
What Worked
This is a novel, just like it says on the front cover, a novel. Apparently whether this is a novel or not needs to be clarified. But yes, Looking for Alaska is definitely a novel, even though there are no chapters. The Before is divided into days that are a couple of pages long at most which count down to the big occurrence. The After counts the days afterwards. There are no villains or heroes in this book to provide ups and downs, apart from that one occurrence, so the countdown helps build up those feelings far better than chapters ever could. I often found myself thinking "I'll just read one more day then go to bed" and read about five more. It really carried me along the book, just as days do in life. Just as you might think "Is it Thursday already?" you'll be thinking "I finished half the book already."
The other benefit for the days is it makes the book great for interruptions. You can be reading, then be interrupted, then go straight back to reading as though you never put it down. It's a great read when you're travelling, waiting at a doctor's office, during the holidays when you have family visiting.
Mixed Feelings
There are a few things Joh Green did that I'm not entirely sure worked. One thing is the lists. Looking for Alaska is written in Miles' point of view and in the beginning of the book John Green uses lists to express Miles' feelings and opinions. I felt that the lists 1. distracted from the story 2. interrupted the otherwise well flowing prose 3. got annoying after a while 4. even the author stopped doing it later on 5. there are better ways to express feelings than lists.
There is an abundance of titles to make people and events more significant.
The Colonel
The Eagle
The Old Man
The Great Perhaps
The Honk
The Duct Tape Incident
The Look of Doom
The Smoking Hole
And so forth. I don't know if this is really how teenagers talk nowadays, but I felt it over-signified events that didn't need to be.
Please Fix
Page 170
The Colonel sighed and pulled a pack of Pudge a Fund cigarettes of his jeans pocket. "Why not?"
"Because I don't want to! Do I have provide you with an in-depth analysis of every decision I make?"
It should be "cigarettes out of his" and "Do I have to provide". I can forgive a typo now and then, but not two omitted words within two lines.
Controversy
Looking for Alaska is taught in some schools and this seems to upset a few parents. The themes of this book includes smoking, drinking and sex, therefore adults are concerned that their kids will be influenced and start smoking, drinking and have sex. I strongly disagree. The fact is, some kids are going to smoke, drink and/or have sex whether they read about it or not. Some kids can read about it, see it on TV, hear it in music and still do none of them (like me). I don't believe you can protect kids through ignorance. Looking for Alaska is loved by many teens and it provides the opportunity for them to talk to their parents and teachers about it. If you really want to protect your kids, it should be done through knowledge, openness and trust.
Smoking, drinking and sex aren't even the themes of this book to begin with. It's about life, death and the things in between - smoking, drinking and sex just happen to be among all of that.
When reading Looking for Alaska, you need to ignore the smoking, drinking and sex (oh and the swearing) and focus on the more important topics. John Green attempts to answer some of the fundamental question of life and death so openly that it makes this book stand out from others within its genre. I've seen reviews by young adults that the book is aimed for which said the book is "profound" and "groundbreaking" for the topics discussed. You're young. You know nothing. God bless. The spiritual topics in this book are explored in every single book, TV series, movies and comics in one way or another. Looking for Alaska just does it at the forefront. It's a great way to introduce the ideas to young adults and is thought provoking for adults. I would stop and think about the ideas throughout the book. How did I feel about life and death as a 16 year old? How is that different now that I'm 27?
Overall
I enjoyed the writing and quirky characters and their shenanigans. I liked the way the fundamental topics were discussed. This is a book aimed at school kids and I would've loved to have read this for school, more than the classics that were aimed at adults that are for some reason forced down the throats of kids. Teaching Looking for Alaska makes far more sense to me than Shakespeare, Austin or Fitzgerald.
Read the book. Teach it in schools. That is all.
