WARNING! This review contains some pretty
heavy spoilers, like THE MAIN spoiler. This is because it is quite impossible
to not discuss said spoiler as the entire book revolves around it.
Dammit John Green! Why do you always leave
me feeling so empty at the end of your books? I mean I am a particularly morbid
person so I live for all this emotional crap but still, yikes!
This was a great read. It was simple, to
the point and with a small cast of characters you could easily keep up with and
understand. John Green doesn’t beat around the bush. There’s no part of this
book one could deem unnecessary, it is all essential to the plot (I’m looking
at you, Order of the Phoenix). So what did I like about it? I like the very Reservoir Dogs-ness of it in the sense
that the book revolves around a single event by which the reader only
experiences the Before and the After (no seriously, the book is divided into
“Before” and “After”). The event itself is not actually described as it happens
which I think is quite great. I liked the realness of Alaska. She was not a
perfect fantasy aside from the fact that she is described as beautiful/hot
(which in any case is subjective). She’s dirty, wild, a smoker, a heavy
drinker, an infuriating mystery (which she’s rather smug about), impulsive, and
kind of a slut. While I personally would not have liked Alaska much as a
person, what she meant to everyone else (Miles, Takumi, the Colonel and Lara)
is clearly communicated so it’s impossible not to feel her loss.
I also liked the realness of the book as a
whole and that’s something consistent I’ve noticed about John Green’s work in
general. Yes, it is a love story but it is not JUST that. I personally have
little time for books that are all romance and no substance but this certainly
had substance. For one, the love was not perfect. I’m not talking Romeo and
Juliet imperfection but real life imperfections with love: unrequited love,
loving someone is who is loved by many other people (think that popular girl in
school that EVERYONE had a crush on), infatuation, obsession, physical love vs.
actual love etc. Alaska repeats continuously throughout the book that she loves
her boyfriend so I have little doubt that her kiss with Miles meant much to
her. Miles’ love for her is also imperfect, he loves her when she is lovable
and hates her when she is not. And then there’s Takumi, totally unrequited but
a bit purer I think.
I know it makes me sound like I’m
completely unfeeling but I liked that he didn’t get her in the end. Why?
Because the story was never fantasy to begin with so why should it end that way.
When we read the Romeo and Juliet-esque love stories they are fantastical and
getting together at the end seems essential (*cough cough* Twilight *cough
cough*). Alaska did not love Miles back so it would make no sense that she
would break up with Jake or that her car ride was to see him and tell him what
happened between her and Miles. The only person that really had Alaska was her
mother and it seemed right that her death was centered on her love for her.
The book revolves around the idea of a
“Great Perhaps”. That is exactly what Alaska is, a perhaps. Her death brings up
the idea of what could have been, what may have happened. It is a message to us
as readers as well to continue to search for the maybes. The other great quote
was Simón Bolívar’s “How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?” How indeed?
The labyrinth is life and it is a labyrinth of suffering. We are lost and in
death we find our way out. Alaska’s was “straight and fast”, an instruction or
a musing? Through Miles, the Colonel, Takumi and Lara we learn the difference
between living out the suffering of remaining in the labyrinth but the added
possibility of discovering the Great Perhaps vs. the straight and fast way out
that leaves no possibility for anything more.
I could go on to analyse this book forever
but I’d possibly bore you all to death. Simply put, if you want a beautiful
romance that makes your heart soar, you’re probably not going to want to read
this book. But, if you’re fascinated by the concepts of life and death, of love
– both romantic and otherwise, of rebelliousness and pain and if you can do
without the satisfaction of knowing everything then definitely read it.
KEEP
Rating: 8/10
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