Looking for Alaska by John Green

HuGe SpoILers

Looking for Alaska by John Green

In the book "Looking for Alaska" by John Green, it follows the story of Miles "Pudge" Halter and his search for "the Great Perhaps" a mythical idea he had read about in a poem. This idea of a great perhaps that he had never even gotten close to in his life, took over his mind and makes him chose to go to Culver Creek Boarding school, a choice that changes his life.

   Its hard to explain Alaska and Mile's relationship. She's sort of a sinking boat that Mile won't abandon. She smiles and laughs and runs barefoot through grass dragging Miles along for the journey. She's everything Miles wants to be and everything he wishes he was. But Alaska is a sinking boat. And once a boat has a leak its almost impossible to repair it. So slowly Alaska sinks. Miles, refusing to believe theres a leak in his boat, just wanting to find land. Alaska, not helping at all, wishes to drag Miles down until water fills his lungs and its too late. And maybe she completed it, with her random outbursts of hating herself. We as a reader realize she's got him wrapped around her little finger, slowly drowning him. But this hate, this leak grows to fast and too quickly. She sinks before he's gone. And I'm not saying Alaska is a bad person, she has her problems just like everyone else, but her need to not be alone is shown many times throughout the book, for instance when she insists on making Miles stay with her over Thanksgiving. Throughout the book, theres this question of what might happen when she's  really alone with her destructive thoughts and break downs, which is also a big theme in the book because she has a single room, but she never really seems to be alone.

 Miles has a strange fascination with last words. Its his weird unexplainable talent. This idea of being remembered by the last words you can spit out before death wraps you in his dark cloak. I found this especially interesting when after Alaska's death, they are trying to understand if it was a suicide or not, so they look up the signs of a suicidal person and one of them is when the suicidal person is obsessed with talking about death, which is what Miles does with his special talent. This caught my eye as a forshadow.

  While John Green is my favorite author, i find his work very repetative. One person doesn't have a life but seeks to find one, this person finds a person who teaches them how to live, the 1st person falls in love with person 2. I would like to read more of his books and see if this fallows through.