Just finished Looking For Alaska by John Green. Here's a review which is really a rant, so don't read it if you think it will keep you from enjoying the story. There aren't any spoilers.
Also, sorry about my awful laxity concerning tenses. I guess this book hasn't brought out the best in me.
So very, very disappointed by Looking for Alaska. I shouldn't really do it to myself: whenever I really like a book I should avoid the author's debut novel like the plaguey pox.
I really liked An Abundance of Katherines, the only other John Green book I've ever read. It was smart, funny, thoughtful. The characters were believeable and interesting. You wanted to know what would happen next!
Looking for Alaska was lacking on all those fronts. It wanted to be deep but ended up being as shallow and muddy as a puddle. (Forgive me the simile, my writing style may need some recovery time.) There were so many moments when I just wanted to punch the narrator and say 'look, buster, why are you going on and on about suffering? You're not suffering.' Which was, weirdly, true - even when bad things did happen to the characters there was never a sense of immediacy; the incidents just never seemed to impact as they were meant to. Even the (trying not to spill spoilers all over your possible future reading!) bad thing that 'changes everything' doesn't really seem to change the tone of the book at all. Any emotional scenes feel as if they were written in afterwards, by a different writer who was in a hurry to get the thing printed. None of the pranks felt funny - the general feeling behind the whole story was one of an ( appropriate, I guess. But still) adolescent hostility. Nothing was funny or heartfelt. Apart from a few moments between the main character, Miles (Pudge) and his roommate, Chips (the Colonel. I hate nicknames in books.) the whole thing didn't feel like a friendship story at all - there was a pervading and ugly sense of isolation throughout. Sorry if I seem to be groping my way through this novel by way of how it made me feel, but I found the book's agenda of wanting to make me think irritating, patronising and offensive by the end. And just let me get started on the characters!
Most of the characters only popped up now and then, randomly (like daisies!). Mostly forgettable, faceless cardboard cutouts - easily replacable by any other background character in recorded history. The three main characters, Miles, the Colonel and, of course, Alaska, are the only easily differentiated or even slightly memorable creations to feature in this novel. I liked the Colonel best - even though, come to think of it, he's so poorly created that I could hardly describe any defining features of his. I did like the fact that he seemed to actually have emotions, though.
I found Miles's philosophising pretentious and annoying and his self absorbtion just got to me so much! All mopey teenagers should be sent to third world countries where they can do some hard work and feel ashamed of their wimpy angst!
Alaska herself just didn't seem like a real person to me. I know, I know she was meant to be some sort of wild ethereal mystery person full of poetic emotion and moonlight and cigarettes. Honestly? She grossed me out. The kindest sensation Alsaksa aroused in me was a wry pity. And a heap of revulsion and annoyance. I know every female character in literature can't be Elizabeth Bennet, but why are so many just brainless selfish harpies? I don't get it.
I can see why, with its anti-authoritan themes and constant references to smoking, drinking and sex, this book is so attractive to adherents to the hipster culture. I appreciate the quotable bits that pop up all the time in white text on overdeveloped pictures on tumblr. But, on the whole, this novel was pandering and pretentious and I didn't get a thing out of it. Perhaps it has inspired some people to think deeply about life and death and purpose, but for me all that stuff was handled so badly I felt insulted.
Good day to you all.
“The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska
