Looking for Alaska, by John Green

And now is as good a time as any to say that she was beautiful. In the dark beside me, she smelled of sweat and sunshine and vanilla, and on that thin-mooned night I could see little more than her silhouette except for when she smoked, when the burning cherry of the cigarette washed her face in pale red light. But even in the dark, I could see her eyes – fierce emeralds. She had the kind of eyes that predisposed you to supporting her every endeavour.”

If you follow the world of YA lit, then you have probably already heard of, if not read Looking for Alaska, the debut novel from John Green. It’s not particularly new, having been published in 2005, and countless reviews have already been written about. So I’ll keep mine short.

Miles, something of a geek with a penchant for memorising people’s last words begins this story by leaving his home in Florida to attend boarding school in Alabama. It is at Culver Creek Preparatory School that he meets, among other new friends, the beautiful, adventurous, mysterious, and self-destructive Alaska Young.

Their life at Culver Creek consists largely of smoking, drinking, playing pranks, and, well, study. The first section of the book is titled “Before”, with chapters titled “One hundred and Thirty-six days before”, “Ninety-nine Days Before”, etc. the second section continues the theme, being called “After”. I won’t tell you the pivotal moment, but if you really want to know before you read it, there are plenty of reviews that do reveal the basic event and you might be able to guess what happens anyway.

The book contains plenty of internal reflections from Miles who narrates the story, and the dialogue between the various friends makes them real and fun people. But as the story progresses Alaska’s moods become darker as things build toward the transition from before to after. The second half of the books sees the characters’ lives changed dramatically.

Looking for Alaska is a wonderful book that certainly deserves the accolades it receives. It’s not some light, fluffy teen romance book and I would recommend it to adults just as quickly as to the teens to whom it is marketed.

You can learn a bunch more about John Green by visiting sparksflyup.com, and if you’re one of my local Melbourne based readers, you can get along to see him live this month.