Looking for Alaska - Review

Title: Looking for Alaska

Author: John Green

Release Date: January 1, 2005

Format: Kindle

Publisher: Penguin Publishing

Purchased: AMAZON

Synopsis:  

Before…Miles "Pudge" Halter is done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave "the Great Perhaps" even more (Francois Rabelais, poet). He heads off to the sometimes crazy and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young. She is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.

After…Nothing is ever the same. (From GOODREADS)

Expectation: Once one reads a John Green book, one cannot help but have high expectations for other John Green books. The man makes it very difficult for himself. Each time one reads one of his books, they'll think, 'well, he can't top this one'. 

Market/Genre: Young Adult/Contemporary

REVIEW:

Alaska is a place. You can find it deeply embedded within the fisted heart of Miles ‘Pudge’ Halter. He who set out to discover the Great Perhaps found it burning brightly in the person of Alaska Young. Sometimes, though, you have to be careful what you ask for. The Great Perhaps is a fabulous journey…and a tumultuous burden.

Looking for Alaska is one of those books you cling to at the end. I know this doesn’t make sense, but the love I have for LFA makes me think of A Separate Peace…not the book itself, but the love I have for it. That’s how it goes sometimes, and for no definable reason…you equate books by the feelings you get when reading them, not by subject matter or similarities they share. Book love. It’s an odd thing. These two books will always be intertwined in my brain not because they’re in any way similar, but because the feelings I experienced while reading them were.

That being said, I absolutely adored Looking for Alaska.

FAVOURITE QUOTES:

~ 'She had the kind of eyes that predisposed you to supporting her every endeavor.'

~ 'The Great Perhaps was upon us, and we were invincible.'

~ 'We ran like we had golden shoes.'

~ 'We are as indestructible as we believe ourselves to be.'

~ ‘I wanted to be one of those people who have streaks to maintain, who scorch the ground with their intensity. But for now, at least I knew such people, and they needed me, just like comets need tails.’

When I say these are some of my favourite quotes, I may be downplaying it a bit…these are tattoo-able, especially the second quote. Green has such a way of working life mantras into his prose…he probably doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. He’s an absolute master at it!

Alaska Young kind of deserves the pedestal her friends and co-students almost unwittingly put her on. Alaska Young is awesome. Our narrator knows it, too. Pudge (Miles Halter) may have been late to the party, but he definitely arrived at just the right spot when he got there. He arrives at Culver Creek Boarding School a year after everybody else…but he gets to share a room with The Colonel, Alaska’s best friend and confidante. That puts Pudge right in the middle of the Great Perhaps that he craves so obsessively.

I loved Pudge’s uniquely quirky ability to memorize famous last words…and perhaps this is the personality trait that intrigued his new friends and quickly ingratiated him into their lives. Without it being said, I had the feeling that these new people in Pudge’s life—The Colonel, Alaska, Takumi, Lara—these were the in-crowd. And he effortlessly fell in with them.

Pudge becomes instantly enamoured with Alaska Young, a girl who is always referring to her off-campus boyfriend…always pointing out that she is not available. She is the risk-taking, free spirited girl who is comfortable with whoever she is on any given day…on the surface. She’s the girl that everybody wants a piece of—they sense her magic, she is the centre that the rest of the Culver Creek Boarding School orbits around.

But there are complications and secrets in the life of Alaska Young. Viewed through the eyes of our narrator, we begin to put the pieces of Alaska Young together. Pudge becomes one of the tails to her fiercely burning comet. He allows the story he is telling to be about her, not him.

John Green is a complete and utter MASTER. I can’t even get into what happens in this novel without plastering SPOILER ALERT all over everything, but I will say it is kind of broken down into a BEFORE and an AFTER. There is a great event that ricochets the dynamic circle of friends into a cyclone of emotion. There are a lot of hi-jinx and one-upping in the BEFORE, as everybody tries to outdo everybody else in the practical joke department. And there is a lot of introspection in the AFTER…a lot of questioning, soul-searching, etc.

Looking for Alaska is an amazing character study. Phenomenal characters you will love forever! This is definitely in my pile to be read yearly. Right there beside my beloved copy of A Separate Peace.

You’re gonna love this one! It’s my favourite John Green title.

Expectation: Out of the water!

SIZE: 5 (1/2) 

The Fault in Our Stars - Review

Title: The Fault in Our Stars

Author: John Green

Release Date: January 10, 2012

Format/Page Count: Kindle Edition

Publisher: Dutton Children's

Purchased: Amazon



Synopsis: Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 12, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs... for now. Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault. Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind. (FROM GOODREADS )

Expectation: I discovered John Green a while back, but kind of rediscovered him when I discovered Twitter. I've enjoyed his previous books and pre-ordered this one far in advance. Needless to say, I was dying with anticipation. Expectation HIGH.

Market/Genre: Young Adult/Contemporary

Review: 

"You are so busy being you that you have no idea how utterly unprecedented you are." ~ Augustus Waters

My favourite thing about this novel is the way 17-year old cancer survivor Augustus Waters loves the narrator, 16-year old terminally ill Hazel Grace Lancaster. Believe me, it was hard for me to come up with a favourite aspect of this novel. There were so many admirable qualities to THE FAULT IN OUR STARS. Once John Green gets the reader into the Literal Heart of Jesus, there's no turning back. He's got you for the duration.

This is such an exceptionally intelligent story, too. Hazel is dying. She has stage IV cancer. It is in a cancer support group where she meets the handsome and illustrious Augustus Waters. Gus is one of those wonderful characters I just can't get enough of...he's got a brain, a sense of humour and a unique outlook on the world. As the reader, I waited for him to appear in a scene. I know he's going to say something brilliant and I'm going to want to quote it later. He loves life, though he knows its ugliest secrets. He is able to see beauty even when his life has been less than beautiful. But most of all, his total and all-consuming love for Hazel...Green just does this RIGHT. Augustus's adoration of Hazel is exquisite.

At one point in their early acquaintance, Hazel asks Gus, "Why are you looking at me like that?" Any normal 17-year old boy would shy away, or say something really stupid and non-committal. They would blush to a red resembling fire. But our Augustus Waters, our philosopher in the making, says, "Because you're beautiful. I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence."

The story is, on the surface, a story of cancer...how it fights to survive while it kills its host. But a cancer story shows nothing of humanity. Cancer in and of itself does not a story make. It's actually quite a blase thing in the grand scheme of things. Under the surface, this is a love story and a human story. And a clever story.

Hazel has a favourite book. Don't we all. I don't know about you, but when I see a book referenced within a book I love...I kind of get excited. I think, 'I wonder why the author chose this book to reference...I must read it!' I search it out to read it. Well, in the case of Hazel's favourite book...it does not exist outside the parameters of The Fault in Our Stars. AN IMPERIAL AFFLICTION was written by the character Peter Van Houten. The thing about AIA, though, is that it ends mid-sentence. Hazel would do anything to find out what happens to the characters in the book AFTER the book ends. But after sending many letters to Mr. Van Houten, and getting no reply, she has to keep wondering.

The almost perfect Augustus Waters (he is minus a leg, after all, thanks to osteosarcoma...but he is otherwise "on a roller coaster that only goes up") reads Hazel's fav. book. He then emails the author and receives a reply through the author's assistant. So begins the journey. The cancer-free Augustus uses his saved-up Cancer Perk wish to take Hazel to the reclusive Van Houten. He will stop at nothing to give the object of his affection whatever it is she wants.


Every character in this book is exquisitely written. The hardest characters to write in YA, in my humble opinion, are the parents. They are either ghosts or in the way. In THE FAULT IN OUR STARS, Green captures a perfect harmony with the two main characters and their parents. From Hazel's tearful father and hovering mother...to Augustus's parents and their houseful of ENCOURAGEMENTS. He just does it right.


I won't go into any more of the story, because I would only be giving it away. Just know that Hazel and Augustus fall in love--Hazel has terminal cancer--they share a love for a book that takes them on a journey--and they talk about life and death in beautiful ways. 


Memorable Quotes:


'I liked being a person. I wanted to keep at it.' - Hazel was a bit of a philosopher herself. Just a girl who wanted to live a little longer.


'...we were together in some invisible and tenuous third space that could only be visited on the phone.' - I never thought of this third space until Green spoke of it...and I knew exactly what he meant.


'I never saw the swing set again.' - Green has a great way of transferring the nostalgic feelings of the characters onto the reader.

"Grief does not change you Hazel. It reveals you." - Green also has a way of rescuing his less than likeable characters by having them say beautiful things at the right times.

'He fumbled toward Gus's hand and found only his thigh. "I'm taken," Gus said.' - I loved the comedic bits in this novel. This passage was between Gus and his friend Isaac, who lost both eyes to cancer.

Don't miss this one. It's a must read. I'm sure it'll make it to many re-read lists. It's definitely on mine. 

SIZE:5

Expectation exceeded. I love this book. It caught every emotion. And it was smart...it will make you think. Be on the lookout for Augustus Waters metaphors!