I often listen to my best friend’s advice concerning books. He has good taste and knows what I like and what I don’t. When he suggested I to read Looking for Alaska written by John Green, I wasn’t completely sure that it was going to be the right book for me. After he insisted for weeks, I finally made up my mind.
It took me three days to finish it. Looking for Alaska totally changed my idea of friendship and family, and I will never thank him enough for making me read this book. This is the kind of book that you will never forget.
The plot of the book is divided in two parts “before”’ and “after.” The reader doesn’t know “before” or “after” what, but the presence of the countdown makes you want to read faster to find out. The countdown starts 136 days before, when Pudge, the main character, is leaving Florida to go Culver Creek, a boarding school attended by his family for generations. Pudge has no friends at all, in fact his goodbye party is a disaster, and he ends up watching tv with his parents. He is a little shy and not very talkative, but he has a huge passion: people’s last words. He reads biographies and memorizes last words, using them as guidelines in his life. One by one, the author introduces us to Pudge’s new friends. Green, doesn’t use cliche teenagers like the popular mean girl that makes fun of the nerd and rules the school or the pretty guy that everybody falls for. Alaska. Takumi and the Colonel are unique individuals and that is one element that makes the story great. All their actions have a specific meaning even though sometimes the reader doesn’t get it right away. When Pudge sees Alaska for the first time, he is speechless. She is beautiful funny and smart, she is not scared by anything, but she also hides a darker side. As Pudge describes her, “If people were rain, I was a drizzle and she was a hurricane” (32). Alaska is also very close to The Colonel. As the nickname says, he is the strong one in the group, the one who keeps everyone together when thing are falling apart and he is always willing to protect and fight for his friends.
Throughout the book, several important themes are developed, like Pudge’s seek of the “Great Perhaps,” as Francois Rabelais said in his last words. While spending time together, the guys often question themselves about the meaning of life. As it turns out, they have very different opinions, as Alaska sees life as a labyrinth from which we try to escape.
Day by day, the countdown gets to zero, and nothing will ever be the same.
“Looking for Alaska” is an excellent book, written in a simple way, but capable of changing your life. It is one of the few books I read more than once, and every time I discovered a different meaning. I learnt to pay more attention to what people say and look for the real meaning of their words. We choose to ignore something just because we don’t like it, and often it turns out that was the most important part. I also realized how sometimes we don’t have all the answers we would like to have. And that’s fine. We can still be happy and move on with our lives. Sometimes we don’t need all the answers.
I feel like everyone would learn something different, depending on how he or she approaches the story. Anyways, my advice to all of you is: read it, and you will not regret it.
