Skip to main content

'Looking for Alaska' by John Green

During this week I gave myself a break from reading my school books and decided to re-read LFA (something I've been wanting to do  for a while). I post reviews on Goodreads and I decided to copy mine across to share on my blog. Why? Because I feel it shows a bit about me. This book didn't change my life, but the way my life has changed has made be able to appreciate it more and relate to it more. Growing up is a funny thing, huh?

Having read this for the first time in the summer of 2010 and having come back to it after nearly two years I find that it has a much bigger impact on me. Back in 2010 I was only just fifteen years old, I was going into year 11 (the year that practically changed my life) and I was - not to be condescending to any 15 year olds out there; this was just me personally - simply unable to understand some of the things discussed in LFA. I am now the same age as Miles, I am in Sixth Form (so my schooling is more like his) and I can relate to all the characters a whole lot more. The death part seemed to affect me more, having experienced the death of my guinea pig (I know, whole different scale... but it was the first time I grieved). I've never said that LFA was my favourite John Green back, in fact - if I were to rank them - it would be nearer the bottom. I've always thought it amazing, but never been able to appreciate it. Now that I can, well, I think it's right up there. Alaska Young, what a character. 



"So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane." - 'Looking For Alaska' by John Green

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Teens don't read"

Earlier today Maureen Johnson pointed out that the view of "teens don't read" in the UK is deeply entrenched (which is a word that I now love  and had never heard before). As a teenager in the UK, the stigma around reading seems to be - to me - it's "uncool", it's "geeky", there "aren't any good books out there". I think the fact that a lot of teenagers in British schools are exposed to older literature or, perhaps, not that popular literature in lessons and forced into over-analysing and spending countless hours on 'what the author meant'. A point that was raised in this twitter discussion was that people didn't want to be seen reading, or didn't want to be seen reading certain books. It's made me realise that I never   ever ever  see people reading in the older years in my school ( ever ). Perhaps the odd year 7 (12 year old) or year 8 (13 year old) will read, but - from experience - they will probably be ...
4 comments
Read more

The people I have met through ink

I read somewhere once that one of the reasons books are so great is that one can pick them up a second time and feel how you did, or remember where you were the first time you picked it up and opened it. I stand by this idea as to one of the reasons I love reading so much. I am perusing the wonderful words of Ali Smith's The Accidental for my level 1 module 'Introduction to Narrative' and whilst this module is all very technical (and trust me, I do love that!) I am really enjoying reading a novel where the characterisation leaves a bitter sweet taste in my mouth and when I close my eyes all I can see is Amber; how she looks, how she dresses, how she smells... I love that. I love that I can read 200 pages or so of one novel and suddenly there is this person inside of my head and I can't get her out. Not so long ago I read R. J. Anderson's Nomad (the second in the Swift series) and I was brought back to why I adore fantasy so much. I felt like I wanted to fly, and...
Post a Comment
Read more

The concept of 'okayness'

Something I've noticed through both personal experience and observing other individuals is how human beings deal with the concept of being 'okay'. Generally we all have good things and bad things going on in their lives, take me for example: bad - back pain, medicine; good - family, friends, home, life, food, money... good stuff happening and change (change is an 'okay' right now rather than a 'not okay'). I happen to think that my life is  okay at the moment because, for me, the good stuff out ways the bad stuff by a milestone. Throughout a day I may become not okay but on the whole I am - on the whole I'm happy. I have noticed though, through reflection and looking at others, that we almost have this desire... this tendency to want to point at the 'not okay' bits of out lives and make them of a higher importance than our 'okay' bits. If I'm having an average day it can much more easily become a bad day than a good because I reme...
2 comments
Read more