Spoilers ahead. Read the book if you’d care for it.
John Green is a master of writing toxic girls who’s revered by simps who are all too ordinary. But there is depth in his writing, and touches a lot of touchy subjects for young adult fiction. Think cancer in The Fault in Our Stars, and in Looking for Alaska, we explore the nature of grief. In the supposedly lightweight genre (is it a genre?) of young adult, this some pretty heavy stuff. Having said that, I do feel like this is John Green’s best work so far.
We meet the skinny Pudge, named ironically by his new roommate The Colonel, who had just moved in to the dorms in an Alabama school. There are other boarders there, students who would go home during the weekends to their rich parents, better known to The Colonel’s clique as the weekend warriors. These kids (or their parents) are doing alright for themselves. Some of them get picked up in limousines and have expensive holidays overseas.
Pudge made friends quickly with The Colonel, Takumi (a Japanese student who’s a hip hop maestro), Lara (a Romanian princess type) and Alaska, who fast becomes Pudge’s love interest and new obsession. Their concerns are to pass school just enough, and immortalising themselves with the most creative pranks, especially against the Culver Creek’s principal, The Eagle.
Under threats of expulsion, the group carries on smoking, sneaking in and mercilessly consuming alcohol, planning pranks on the weekend warriors, being pranked by the weekend warriors, trying to hook up with mixed success. Doing things that teenagers do that John Green sure knows about very well. One night, in a rush, Alaska drove off in the middle of night as though she had remembered something important, drunk as a skunk. That was the last drive in her short, young life.
Navigating through the labyrinth of suffering
The book revolves around one central question, which was Simon Bolivar’s last words: “How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?”
And it is a valid question, as it is a universal question though its significance may vary depending on who’s asking. For Pudge and Alaska, it is the labyrinth of suffering, again, a universal and relatable theme. But it does make one ask the character what they’re suffering from. If we see their backgrounds, they’re quite privileged. Alaska, perhaps had not gotten over the grief of her mother’s death, and Pudge had not truly escaped manoeuvering his lonesomeness.
The suffering perhaps is valid for Alaska, but superficial for Pudge. And I think this is where the books falters a little. It reminded me of a small moment in Sophie’s Choice when Sophie met Nathan’s privileged New York friends who were always complaining about what their psychologists had to say. Sophie, uncomfortable with their ennui, labelled this as unearned suffering.
The suffering would come when Alaska dies. She would not be coming back in a plot twist. The steering wheel that had ran through her chest was the metaphoric nail in the coffin. The After section is each character’s battle to get through the labyrinth of grief.
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Looking for Alaska does not shy away as a young adult novel in toning down the behaviour of adolescents. The book works the better for it. The novel would win the reader over if he / she would make a connection with Alaska, which I unfortunately didn’t. Alaska is a typecast of Green’s strong female protagonist, conflicted in their values but in other ways, warm-hearted and deep-thinking. And this balance, if you want to call it that, is fine. But I don’t fall for girls like Alaska and I didn’t feel much when the shock comes in the middle of the book.
Like any John Green books, it is fine. It is serviceable. There are some profound ideas here a cut above the usual cringey young adult novel. And I do appreciate Green cutting down the cringe to a minimum. Yet, it is a novel which left me feeling pretty meh about things. If this was the intention of the book, then it had done a fair job.
