Looking for Alaska by John Green

 

"It hurt, and that is not a euphemism. It hurt like a beating. Meriwether Lewis's last words were, 'I am not a coward, but I am so strong. So hard to die.' I don't doubt that it is, but it cannot be much harder than being left behind."

                     -Miles, from the novel

Our group selected this book, a young adult fiction, as our representative from the "banned books list." I can't say I enjoyed it very much for a variety of reasons. I will give it a rating of 3 since I felt the writing was skilled, in a debut novel at that. There just wasn't much in the characters or plot to which I could relate. 

High school junior Miles Halter is sent from his home in Florida to attend the Culver Creek Boarding School in Alabama. There he makes friends with some unique characters including Chip Martin, nicknamed "The Colonel." Also in the circle are Takuma Hikohito and Alaska Young, a girl with whom Miles, or Pudge as he has been tagged, is enamored. Miles loves reading biographies and is obsessed with the last words of famous people. He is seeking the "Great Perhaps," a concept of peace within oneself, a philosophy of poet Francois Rabelais.

When Alaska is not cooking up pranks for the group to play she is dwelling on the labyrinth, or maze of life proposed by Gabriel Garcia Marquz in The General in His Labyrinth about Simon Bolivar. She definitely has some emotional baggage. I had never heard of that book or the poetry of Rabelais so I was left a little confused by the references.

Looking for Alaska is described as a coming-of-age novel with themes of grief, guilt and hope, as well as showing the impact one person's life can have on another. It is probably appropriate for mature high school students, but I could almost understand attempts to ban it, especially if certain parts are taken out of context.

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Our group met today to discuss Looking for Alaska. Our average rating was 3.3 with most voting 3 or 4. We started with a rousing discussion about "book banning." And, in fact, we hardly consulted the discussion questions from the publisher. We didn't need any incentive to discuss this novel!

I have no wish to reveal too much but some of our people thought the ending was better than the silly teenage antics of the first part because it was very thoughtfully written, addressing emotions all humans experience in their lives.

FYI there is another book with the exact same title about the actual state of Alaska!