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avaaberger 's review for:
Looking for Alaska
by John Green
This book is special in so many ways! I think for my first John Green book, this certainly lived up to the hype. I always appreciate a book with great characters and I absolutely loved Pudge, the Colonel and Alaska of course. The three of them had such a great dynamic together and I laughed out loud multiple times when reading their dialogue. (I read Perks of Being a Wallflower so recently so this friend group dynamic was oh so familiar…)
One thing I will say is I did not expect that this book would be as introspective and thought provoking as it was considering John Green is a YA author. But I suppose this is a big reason why he is so popular in the genre. I loved all of the different themes especially the theme of forgiveness as this theme did not become super apparent to me until the final 20-30 pages.
Another aspect of the book that I did not expect to get as much out of was the religious component. (Now here comes more of a journal entry as opposed to a review of the book so skip to the next paragraph if you don’t care LOL) Prior to reading this book I haven’t thought too critically about religion and it has never been a part of my life, but I think this book gave me some more perspective on the topic. When Pudge had been talking about how he wanted to know “where she was now if anywhere” I began to realize the importance of practicing religion as a lifelong habit. If a loved one were to unexpectedly pass away, how can you convince yourself that there is a heaven that they went to and that you will see them again (or whatever the afterlife looks like in your respective religion) if you haven’t practiced religion prior to your loved one passing. In other words, I am not religious. If someone close to me were to die (knock on wood 3 times) I would not be able to convince myself that I would see them again in an afterlife because I have never believed in that and never practiced that.
Anyway, back to the book. There were a few things that I read about in the back of the book that John Green did very specifically that I wanted to comment on. I loved the structure of the book as a before/after Alaska’s death. This structure gripped me early on because it created some suspense about what the major event was. The structure also tied in the religious component and the shift in Pudge’s attitude about life and his overall character development from before and after her death. The other thing that I read about in the back of the book was the blowjob scene and the makeout scene. I hadn’t thought about this as I read but John Green specifically wrote the scene with Lara as a very rigid and not very fulfilling experience for either party whereas the scene with Alaska was just kissing but it was immensely more fulfilling and passionate. John Green specifically made these scenes back to back to provide a stark difference between the two and I found this so well done and I absolutely love that he did this. This book is not pornographic at all!! This was just something Green did to demonstrate the character relationships and it was so important to the story!
Overall, I would absolutely recommend this book especially for young people. This book got me thinking more in depth about things I suppose would’ve been nice to have thought about more from a younger age. I mean I’m almost 22 years old and I just read my first John Green book so better late than never!
One thing I will say is I did not expect that this book would be as introspective and thought provoking as it was considering John Green is a YA author. But I suppose this is a big reason why he is so popular in the genre. I loved all of the different themes especially the theme of forgiveness as this theme did not become super apparent to me until the final 20-30 pages.
Another aspect of the book that I did not expect to get as much out of was the religious component. (Now here comes more of a journal entry as opposed to a review of the book so skip to the next paragraph if you don’t care LOL) Prior to reading this book I haven’t thought too critically about religion and it has never been a part of my life, but I think this book gave me some more perspective on the topic. When Pudge had been talking about how he wanted to know “where she was now if anywhere” I began to realize the importance of practicing religion as a lifelong habit. If a loved one were to unexpectedly pass away, how can you convince yourself that there is a heaven that they went to and that you will see them again (or whatever the afterlife looks like in your respective religion) if you haven’t practiced religion prior to your loved one passing. In other words, I am not religious. If someone close to me were to die (knock on wood 3 times) I would not be able to convince myself that I would see them again in an afterlife because I have never believed in that and never practiced that.
Anyway, back to the book. There were a few things that I read about in the back of the book that John Green did very specifically that I wanted to comment on. I loved the structure of the book as a before/after Alaska’s death. This structure gripped me early on because it created some suspense about what the major event was. The structure also tied in the religious component and the shift in Pudge’s attitude about life and his overall character development from before and after her death. The other thing that I read about in the back of the book was the blowjob scene and the makeout scene. I hadn’t thought about this as I read but John Green specifically wrote the scene with Lara as a very rigid and not very fulfilling experience for either party whereas the scene with Alaska was just kissing but it was immensely more fulfilling and passionate. John Green specifically made these scenes back to back to provide a stark difference between the two and I found this so well done and I absolutely love that he did this. This book is not pornographic at all!! This was just something Green did to demonstrate the character relationships and it was so important to the story!
Overall, I would absolutely recommend this book especially for young people. This book got me thinking more in depth about things I suppose would’ve been nice to have thought about more from a younger age. I mean I’m almost 22 years old and I just read my first John Green book so better late than never!