After finding out that John Green might be coming to speak at my school* (eee!), I grabbed his first book, Looking for Alaska. You might recall that I loved the shit out of his second book, An Abundance of Katherines. This is a very different book — weightier; more Dead Poets Society than High Fidelity, which makes it less likely to appear on a list of My Favorite Books because there’s nothing I adore more than an author who can crack me up throughout an entire book while still inspiring Deep Thoughts. But I loved it all the same.
Looking for Alaska starts with two plot elements I find incredibly annoying: 1) hazing, and 2) a mysterious bipolar chick with whom the hapless protagonist is bound to fall in love. 1) No matter how much Separate Peace and Chocolate War I read, I will never understand teenage boys and their need to ritually endanger each other in order to prove how powerful they are. And 2) I think I’m the only person I know who hated The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, because shut up already with the glorification of the moody girl who will only make you miserable!
But this book turns both these things around and makes something new and beautiful out of them. 2) is too central to the story for me to say anything without being too spoilery, but as for 1)…
After performing a retaliatory prank on the rich kids (who are known as the Weekday Warriors, because they board but go home to their nearby mansions on weekends):
But even though Kevin had sort of tried to kill me and all, he really didn’t seem worth hating. Hating the cool kids takes an awful lot of energy, and I’d given up on it a long time ago.
By the end of the book, the Warriors aren’t friends, but they aren’t enemies either — just classmates, and not particularly assholic ones at that. Because all the inter-clique drama just isn’t worth it anymore. Don’t you wish you’d figured that out in high school?
* The high school part, not the middle school part. This is very much a high school book, with adult crossover potential; I’d say 15+. It’s a shame, in a way, that the book has so much Adult Content, because it’s also very spiritual and even religious. The publisher has an interview with Green that gets at some of the religious questions in the book, in which Green declares that he considered becoming a minister, and that he is “not embarrassed by [his] faith.” If it weren’t for all the swearing and the blow job, this might get a stamp of approval from the “Think of the children!” crowd. Instead it just gets called “porn”, which is too bad because there are so few good, thoughtful YA books by and about people considering their faith.
4 responses so far ↓
1 jfpbookworm // Jul 10, 2008 at 11:04 am
That safelibraries.org site is seriously creeping me out, not just for the advocation of censorship (my literary adolescence would have been a much bleaker place had folks like these had their way 20 years ago), but for the lack of transparency (who’s behind this organization? What’s their agenda? Who supports them?) and the downright ignorance and/or misrepresentation (implying that inclusion on a syllabus of a library science class constitutes endorsement, or that a stipulation by the parties in a Supreme Court case is precedential; claiming a connection making materials with sexual content available to minors with safety).
2 Sam // Jul 10, 2008 at 11:55 am
Bookworm:
Yeah, it’s totally creepy. I don’t mean to imply that it’s the best representative of Christian review sites, by any means; I picked it because it was the first opposition link that came up when I googled the book, and there has been a serious controversy about this book that I wanted to represent somehow.
I went back and forth about even linking to it at all, but I find it frustrating when people with opposing views don’t link to each other. Like their internets aren’t connected and don’t deserve to be part of the same conversation.
But yes — I disagree with virtually everything they say (except for the part about this book not being for younger kids), and how they say it.
3 colorwheel // Jul 10, 2008 at 1:57 pm
from the link: Here are words and phrases from “Looking For Alaska” most people, except ALA librarians, think are inappropriate for 12 year olds
MOST PEOPLE, EXCEPT ALA LIBRARIANS is now my new favorite phrase.
4 Michael // Jul 11, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Urgh, those safelibraries people can’t tell the difference between “This book is aimed at some people in category X” and “This book is appropriate for all people in category X”! How can this be a hard concept?
I know, I know, this is the choir over here, just had to get that off my chest…
Leave a Comment