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lollreagan · 2 years ago

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looking for alaska by john green

as with all my review posts, *spoiler warning*

well well well folks. i am officially finished with my first year of college and my exams. since moving from my small town high school to an ivy league - i can now say that i am a mediocre student - at best. i went from someone who had all A’s during high school to having half of my transcript be B’s and B-. And even so, I still had the best time. I can’t wait to leave my hell hole of a house to go back in June, because I miss the city so much already. (I think it’s something having to do with the sun being out now, because I wanted to go home soooo bad when it got cold - i am not a cold person).

In my scrumptious 16 hour car ride back home, i took up one of my previous pastimes - reading. because I was in the car, I only had the selection of books which i had previously downloaded on my iPad - one of them being Looking for Alaska by John Green.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I reallyyy want to like it. I do. I really do. But for some reason I just can’t. I don’t like how the book is built around the one central point and it happens halfway thru the book.

We never got to see Pudge and Alaska in their moment. There was so much buildup and then suddenly it was gone. And Pudge got super annoying and thank GOD the characters were able to recognize this and tell it to him. However because the story is told from Pudge’s point of view, we have to put up with him.

Pudge is unlikeable. He’s lowkey narcissistic and a pick-me. He thinks that no one wanted to be friends with him in high school because he just wasn’t cool or because he was too skinny. This really bothered me.

Alaska is unlikeable. She’s manipulative, especially toward Pudge. She would get jealous when Pudge would be with Lara, but she wouldn’t want to be with Pudge. And she knew that she could control Pudge.

The only likeable characters were Colonel and the Eagle. I actually really liked the Eagle. And Takumi and Lara but they were so minor that they didn’t even add much to the story.

The story was too short. I feel like John could have expanded the story so much. It ended so abruptly. It felt like we were just finally getting to understand the characters and how they act with one another and then *boom* climax of the story and then its over. that was it. too short and too abrupt of an ending.

the climax didn’t make an sense. the story felt like John knew he wanted Alaska to die, but then wrote the story before he had figured out how. It felt like John didn’t even know how she died either. And i didn’t like this. I don’t like being in the same state of ‘not knowing’ as the author. I like being kept in the dark, if it means that the reveal is coming later on. It never came. I was still left confused. “Yeah but that’s the point, you’re supposed to come to your own conclusion like Pudge and Colonel” Shut up. Just shut up. You sound like you’re trying to justify bad writing. Shut up.

There should have been more buildup to the car crash. And the book would have been better if it was told from both perspectives of both Pudge and Alaska. Because it would be better for the audience to know exactly what was going through Alaska’s head.

The part where she just storms out and has to drive to see her mother at 3 am was so abrupt and stupid too. It made no sense. She would have been too drunk to even remember, which is what they made a point of at first. Also she never would have been able to drive straight. Her committing suicide made NO SENSE. and john made a point of that through the characters’ investigations and THEY EVEN SAID IT MADE NO SENSE FOR HER. this is why there should have been a perspective from alaska. it was just lazy writing in my opinion to have not had that.

i hate this book. i hate this book. it had so much potential and then it felt like john got in a rush at the end and rushed the ending. the buildup was so good and then he just ruined it.

rating: 4/10

it pains me to give this rating, can someone please make a fan version of the novel that is actually good, im begging.

#john green #looking for alaka #looking for alaska #the fault in our stars #john green books #book #booktok #book review #looking for alaska review #book tumblr #john green sucks #looking for alaska sucks #pudge #miles halter #alaska young #the colonel #takumi #lara

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fluer-goblin · 2 years ago

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Alaska has a single!

Streaky blue marker covered the dry erase board on the door, flowing into a straight line from the exclamation point, as if someone was being snatched away as they wrote.

The Colonel smirked up at Pudge.

"You knock once. Three times and the Eagle is coming for you." He made a cutthroat sign at Miles and gave a firm, loud knock, his ear almost perking up against the door waiting for her.

They could hear her inside, her voice ringing with excitement.

"Oh my god! Come in here you short little man because I have theeee best story!"

The Colonel held the door open for Pudge, awkwardly waiting for him to go in.

Pudge watched the Colonel lock eyes with her across the room. This girl started off at a mile a minute.

"First day of summer, I'm in good old Vine Station with Justin, the one I've been friends with for years. And mind you I'm dating Jake-"

Pudge slowly began to close the door. The Colonel, without breaking eye contact held his arm out, letting the door shut on him.

Pudge winced at his indifference to a door shutting on his arm.

The Colonel didn't even look at Pudge.

"Can't have closed doors in a girls room after seven." He said, holding the door wide open and kicking random junk strewn on her floor to prop it open.

Alaska awkwardly smiled, still barely registering Pudge, who was now watching her closely, shifting from one foot to another.

"And, and!" She carried on like nothing had happened, "I am still dating Jake. Big shocker we know. But we're just sitting on the couch watching a rerun of Twin Peaks talking about SATs or whatever and he puts his arm around me. I think. Oh. That's nice. We've been friends forever and this is totally comfortable. And as I'm like talking about analogies he swoops in like a bird and honks my boob-"

For emphasis, she grab's Pudge's bony wrist, bringing it to her breast and closing his fingers on it. She keeps going as if Pudge was a prop for her dramatic retelling.

"-HONK! A much too firm two-to-three second HONK! And the first thing I'm thinking is. Okay. How do I extricate this claw off my boob before it leaves permanent marks? And the second thing I thought was God. I can't wait to tell Takumi and the Colonel."

The Colonel chuckled, watching Alaska fidget with the fur on a bean bag chair.

"So. A single?" He gestured to the door, before putting his hands in his pockets.

Alaska's eyebrows furrowed. She turned to Miles, an uncomfortable smile appearing weakly across her lips.

"You can let go now."

Miles lowered his hand from her shirt, turning to her piles of books.

She stomped to the door and began fervently rubbing at the writing.

"All the trouble breaking out and they just need to bring me into it. I wasn't the one kicked out.."

She glared at the Colonel, as if projecting her anger onto him

"So.." She watched him.

"Who's this guy not laughing at my joke?" She turned to Pudge.

" Alaska, This is Pudge. He memorizes people's last words. Pudge, This is Alaska. She got her boob honked this summer."

He sighed, stepping back to allow a formal meeting.

Alaska smiled warmly, extending her hand to him and at the last moment pulled down his shorts.

"Those are the biggest shorts in the State of Alabama!"

Miles sheepishly pulled them back on, wiping his hands on his shirt and refusing to look at her.

"I like them baggy.."

"Pudge. So far in our relationship I have seen your chicken legs far too much." The Colonel deadpanned, frowning at him.

"So Alaska, sell me some cigarettes."

Pudge and the Colonel got into a heated discussion.

"No, no! These are the good ones. They have a filter Pudge! Filtered cigarettes. Do you know how long I sucked down my dad's hand rolled garbage sticks and coughed up straight grass.. Pudge?! It's five dollars. You can even have one."

Eventually, Pudge agreed. The Colonel tucked the pack into his back pocket happily.

Alaska rolled the fiver and placed it gingerly in the front pocket of her deep blue cutoffs. Pudge thought she looked beautiful, in her peach tanktop with her hair haphazardly tied into a ponytail.

"Have you seen Takumi?" She smiled sweetly at him.

Pudge seriously had no idea who this was. He just shook his head.

"Alright. See you at the lake in a few minutes Alaska." The Colonel nodded, already sprinting off with the determination that you only see in short people.

Alaska chortled, turning back to her book.

The Colonel and Pudge sat on an adirondack swing, swaying lightly, looking out onto the sandy beach surrounding the lake.

"Don't grab my boob."

Miles looked pleased at the obligatory joke. The Colonel gave a dry laugh and pulled a stray cigarette out of his pack.

"Do you smoke?"

"Um. Not really."

The colonel flicked his lighter open in a practiced motion, lighting the cigarette and giving it to Pudge.

Pudge coughed and wheezed, gasping for breath.

Now that made The Colonel laugh.

He pointed across the lake to a very still white speak.

"See that?"

Pudge nodded weakly, still attempting to smoke. He cautiously held the cigarette, attempting to inhale. Every time he took a puff, the smoke shot out in a dry cough.

"Bird?" Miles mused in between hoarse coughs.

"Thats the swan."

"Wow. A school with a swan."

"That swan is the spawn of satan. Don't get any closer to it than we are now."

The Colonel lit a cigarette.

"Why?"

"It has some issue with people. It'll rip you to pieces. The Eagle put it here to stop us from walking around the lake to smoke."

"The Eagle?"

"Mr Starnes. Code Name: The Eagle. If you think the teachers are bad just wait until you have a meeting with him. He lives in our dorm circle. The Eagle sees all. He can smell a cigarette from like five miles away."

"But that's his house.. right?" He pointed to the largest of the buildings in the dorm circle, clear as day in the lavender dusk.

"He doesn't go Blitzkrieg mode until classes start."

The Colonel sighed, letting a stream of smoke curl from his pursed lips down over the lake. It made him look cool. Taller somehow.

"My parents will kill me if I get in any trouble."

"You're definitely exaggerating Pudge. But Look. If you get in any trouble, most of the time your parents don't have to know. This school doesn't want them to think that you became a fuckup anymore than you do. But. If you do. Just don't tell on anyone. I hate those rich snots with a feverent passion that I save only for dental work and my father but I would never rat on them. Just. Don't. Rat. That's the most important thing to know. Are you even listening?"

The Colonel snaked his arm underneath the oversized sleeve of Pudge's Tshirt and gave him a firm pitch. Pudge looked at him absent-mindedly, just holding the cigarette as it deteriorated into crumbly embers.

"Okay."

The Colonel stood up from the porch swing and patted his shoulder.

"We have reached the point in the evening in which I am obligated to go find my girlfriend. I will see you later Pudge."

Miles kept swinging, taking a drag from the cigarette he held as the mosquitoes and no-see-ums hummed in such great numbers that it was cacophonous. As expected, he choked on his first puff.

Truthfully, he was just trying to pass the time. As he stood to leave, he heard a familiar voice, exactly what he was waiting for.

"Do you really memorize last words?"

Alaska ran up to him and pushed him onto the porch swing, sliding herself next to him.

"Yep.."

She looked at him, happy like a little kid.

"JFK." She spoke quickly, competitivley, as if to catch him lacking.

"That's obvious." Miles dared to look at her.

She was impressed.

"Is it now?"

"N-No. Those were his last words. Someone said 'Mr President, You can't say Dallas doesn't love you.' and He said that's obvious, and then.."

Miles meekly made a gesture of a gun blowing against his head, almost making the fact funny.

"That is horrible. I feel bad for laughing. Anything else for me, Mr.Famous Last Words?"

Pudge leaned over and shuffled in his bag, producing a creased paperback.

"Um. It's something I've just started reading. A Grief Observed by C S Lewis.. about Joy Davidman. I- Well. I always skip to the last page, the parting remarks."

He awkwardly shuffled through each individual page.

"How wicked it would be, if we could, to call the dead back! She said not to me but to the chaplain... 'I am at peace with god.' She smiled, But not at me. Poi so tornò all' eterna fontana.. and I looked it up and that means.."

"-And them she returned to the Eternal Fountain."

Pudge looked at her, mouth agape.

"What? I like Divine Comedy."

She leaned to pull a cigarette out and light it, taking the longest drag maybe possible. Pudge was convinced it could've all become smoke in that one puff.

Alaska, shrouded in pale red light by the cherry of her cigarette, looked up at him. Pudge admired her beauty. She smelled like Vanilla and sweat.

He glanced to the ground, watching her flip flops dangle from electric-blue-painted toes.

She was leaning in to him. So close to his face that he felt her breath, hot against his cheek.

"Well. That's interesting to me. What is Joy smiling at? What is the eternal fountain. You- you know?"

He waited for her answer. She waited for his. The question hung in the air.

".. Have you read all of the books in your room?"

She leaned back, laughing.

"Oh god no! Maybe a third of them. Every summer since I was little I would always go to the garage sales and buy all of the books that looked interesting. I call it my life's library. I'll have time to read when I'm old and boring. For now there are cigarettes to smoke, sex to have and.. swings to swing on."

For emphasis, she lifted her feet off the ground and began softly swinging them.

She peered at him, eyes twinkling in the dark.

Alaska went on to tell him that he was just like The Colonel when they had first met, quieter.. and Pudge was cute. She said that she didn't mean that, because she loves her boyfriend.

"You're not bad yourself." Pudge laughed, "But I didn't say that because I love my girlfriend.. Just kidding. Don't have one."

"If there's one thing I can get you, It's a girlfriend."

Pudge looked solemnly at her, he didn't want someone else.

"If you.. if you can tell me who Joy was smiling at, I'll go on a date."

They shook on it. Pudge smugly grinned. Who was Joy smiling at? God? Death? The Chaplain?

Later, they began their trek back to the dorm circle. Alaska looked back at him mischievously, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear.

"When you're walking at night, do you ever get creeped out and even though it's silly and embarrassing you just want to run home?"

Pudge gulped, nodding.

For a moment she was quiet, thoughtful.

Then she leaned in, grabbed his wrist, whispering "Run run run run.." and pulled him behind her the entire way back.

#fanfiction #looking for alaska #fanfic #slow burn #artists on tumblr #miles halter #alaska young #john green

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