Looking for Alaska by John Green

Looking for Alaska by John Green

Genre: Young Adult General Fiction

Actually, bits and pieces prelude this novel. For some reason, hipsters love to quote “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 hurricane.” It is certainly a lovely quote, but I’m not sure if many actually read the book in its entirety.

For me, Looking for Alaska was equal parts frustrating and provocative. For most of it, I hated the characters. I hated the main character Miles, who went from a friendless loner in tenth grade all of a sudden to a horny, smoking, boozing and vaguely awkward douche in junior year. I hated the drunken and puking mess they all were. I hated these high schoolers’ imaginary invincibility and their constant masturbation of their self-righteous egos and pseudointellects (seriously, who memorizes every country’s population?).

No, I am too harsh. Maybe, I’m the one who doesn’t understand. Maybe, underneath all that carefree, happy-go-lucky, who-gives-a-shit attitude, there is a glint of something more. Do I envy them?—maybe, this is the high school life and childhood I could’ve led had I wanted to and been able to.

In the end, Green’s snappy dialogue and eloquent prose is powerful enough to overcome the dregs of teenage angst and hormones. There are well-written parts, but the reader may need to wait patiently.

Rating: A Drunken, Blindsiding Dark Horse