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Miles Halter is sixteen years old, and in his first year away at Culver Creek, a boarding school in central Alabama. A lot of what happens to Miles as he adjusts to dorm life feels very real -- it reminds me of my first year away at college. Intense friendships form, conflicts simmer, and things that seem small to adults seem so important in the moment to these newly independent teens. Miles and his friends are by turns funny, introspective and overwrought, which is to say that they are like real people. This is not a cleaned-up wonderland -- our characters smoke, drink and explore their sexuality -- and this makes Looking for Alaska all the more believable, even if it makes some adult readers squirm. Miles feels like a real kid, and his friends feel like living, breathing human beings, not caricatures. This is the core of the book and what makes the first part so successful. Yes, Looking for Alaska is divided into two parts: before and after. I won't give away the event that serves as a pivot point here, but it's a powerful moment and it gives us a window on Miles and his friends as they process what has changed. The "after" section of the book is not as good as the "before": it begins with all the power of the pivotal moment, but falters under the weight of some unnecessary repetition as Miles becomes obsessed with figuring out just what happened and grapples with mixed emotions and an urge to rationalize them away. Some of the dialogue in the "after" section tends to sound way too much like prose instead of talk, and threatens to sink Looking for Alaska under its own philosophical weight. Still, this ship never completely sinks, and I stayed up way too late to spend time with Miles and his friends as they process what has happened in their lives. Our characters' relationships fracture and heal, and there's some beautiful rumination about life, and free choice, and consequences. This isn't a perfect book, and John Green's writing technically improves in his later works (better dialogue, for one thing) -- but that didn't stop Alaska from being a good read, and my favorite Green book thus far.

2023-07-31 14:53