Looking For Alaska: “I go to seek a Great Perhaps”

by Justine

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

The Fault in Our Stars: Free From Fault

by Justine

I jumped on the bandwagon. Like pretty much every other teenage girl out there, I saw the trailer for The Fault in Our Stars and thought “Hey! I’m going to be extra cool and actually read the book first!” I should mention however that I have previously been forbidden to do this by my dear colleague and best friend given that I tend to complain through the entire movie about how it’s not at all like the book. She, unfortunately, had to suffer through a few Harry Potter movies and the Hunger Games with me fuming in the seat next to hers. Regardless, I read the book first anyway and I was not disappointed.

First of all, I don’t really read romances. I don’t like the clichés, the soppiness or, in all honesty, the happily ever after. I dislike knowing from the beginning that everything is going to work out in the end. I like a bit of unpredictability and that’s exactly what the good Mr. John Green offered in TFIOS. I’ve only read one other book of his, Paper Towns, which a friend loaned me and, which much to my surprise, I loved. I loved that it wasn’t conventional. I suppose that’s why I enjoyed TFIOS so much. It wasn’t conventional.

Green begins the story, not with the horrible tragedy of Hazel’s cancer or how she’s a fighter, but with Augustus Waters. I love when writers get right to the point. The book follows their falling in love and bonding over mutual suffering, loss, fears and An Imperial Affliction. It’s quaint and funny at times but with an ending that had me sobbing into my duvet at 2 in the morning. Green’s strength is not, as expected, in his character of Hazel Grace, but rather in Augustus. Despite the fact that it’s Hazel that tells the story, I found myself with a much deeper understanding of Augustus’ character. I suppose we as readers got to know him as she did. The contrast between his grandeur and metaphorically driven personality and the helplessness of disease and suffering was beautiful and heartbreaking. One of the things I loved the most was the flippancy of cancer and its patients. It did not seek to be politically correct or reverent in any sense. It was honest. It’s not at all a complex read. You won’t find yourself staring at the pages in bewilderment wondering what the hell is going on (until you read Van Houten’s letters…was that a spoiler?). It’s simple, to the point, and with no desire to be pretentious or overly literary. Despite the fact that I’m quite the flowery (as my mum puts it) writer myself, the simplicity of it is what made me unable to put the book down. No kidding. It took me about a day and a half. It is certainly one of those books you can read over and over and continue to find little things that you didn’t pick up the first few times.

The story is a journey of which we are emotionally involved and invested. I didn’t realize how much until…well…I think that would constitute as a spoiler. John Green, I salute you. Well done. I look forward to re-reading and re-re-reading it until it takes on a similar semblance to An Imperial Affliction. My only hope is that you are not all like Peter Van Houten.

KEEP

Rating: 9/10