The Great Perhaps

Review   Looking for Alaska by John Green

If you haven’t read Looking For Alaska, just go away.    This entire post will be spoilers and you don’t want to read this book knowing much.    You may come back later.

OK?   Are  you gone?

[crickets chirping.]

If I knew how to do one of these jump-to-read-more breaks, I would.   Sometimes, I wonder if this blog is so I have a place to talk with others about stuff I’ve already read (past tense) and I just don’t want to read any more reviews of stuff I haven’t yet (future) – anyone agree with me?

But if you are still here and yet haven’t yet read the title of this post’s discussion, perhaps you might click over to these other reviews which will tell you plot and all the etcs…   Because I’m not going to.

Other Reviews that link to even MORE Reviews:

MUST CLICK HERE ==>   This is Dewey’s Review and it helped me quite a bit.  [sadly, Dewey’s blog is no longer available…]

Heather (Book Addiction) – this is the review I read first after reading the book.   It was the one I had to avoid before I read the book – even though she doesn’t really give anything away…

Dewey’s was the second review I read – and it’s a MUST.   Do watch the Green video.

I think I read all the links that these reviews link to…   I think Nymeth has the most – she wins the linkylove prize!

♦

RANDOM THOUGHTS

♦  I don’t like to review books that everyone I know has read and reviewed already.     But I do want to talk about it.   Maybe I should skip this post and only comment everywhere?  nah.

♦ I came to the one part (the part that has Green so incensed in the vid. yea, that one.) and thought “Uh Oh.   I told my niece to read this!   I can’t be endorsing such things to 16 year olds!!!”     Well, I’m over that, thanks to the author.  OK, I get it.    But I was fascinated by the impulse I had to censor this for the youths in my life!    The cig smoking and the drinking?  Sure, yea, whatever.   s.e.x.?!   goodness me.  sigh…

♦  I did not read any reviews before I read this – other than everyone loves it.       I was seriously thinking Alaska only ran away.     I did know enough that Alaska was a person, so I did pick up on some stuff…   but, WHAT?!   dead?    car crash?    suicide?     Am I only going to fill this post with questions?   I was thinking – Hey! nobody warned me she was going to die!!!

♦   Some extremely funny laugh out loud sections.  OMG.    terrific.    The last prank – did they really have Lara yell that out?   I would have been mortified.   I really liked Lara.     And the cheers at the first basketball game?    I sent Jill an email that we would have to remember those for the next Read-A-Thon.   (which, alas, makes me sad – I’ll help if anyone is thinking about maybe having one. ??? )

♦   I absolutely love that Alaska gave tutoring in pre-calc.   She was awesome.

♦  I did figure out that what Alaska FORGOT was the date of her mom’s death.    I also was bummed that Miles and the Colonel ignored Takumi and Lara and was miffed as they were that they were being ignored.     I think this is another example of the skill of Green’s writing.   It’s not that I figured stuff out I wasn’t supposed to but that I felt RIGHT THERE TOO.    And, who, really, kept track of the days before and after?  Not me.   I did think about it though and decided it wasn’t important for me to be anal about it…

♦  I loved all the book references that I knew!   I read Vonnegut’s Cats Cradle in high school.    so cool.   And I want to read the ones I don’t know and I was thinking that if I was 16 years old, I would want to read all those books, too.  WAY TO GO GREEN!

♦  I love thinking about stereotypical ‘smart’ kids who aren’t stereotypified.    Does that make sense?    I know this is what I loved about majoring in engineering.    The variety of personalities; really cool kids I studied with who weren’t the nerdy guys who tore apart washing machines and put them back together.   NO, the guy I had a major crush on quoted the entire Poe’s Raven to me in the dark.     We discussed all the existential questions.     This book made me reminisce so much…

♦  Any idea how to explain the word ‘perhaps’ to someone who doesn’t speak English?   I think I failed miserably.   I was put on the spot.    It’s a great word, isn’t it.    Maybe doesn’t quite cut it, does it?     So the bit about what the title of this book is in Dutch (I think.) and how it translates back, fascinates me.

♦ I read this for the Dewey Challenge.   I’ve already read 3 of the 5 books I planned on.    How COOL is that?!

♦  I am writing this without having the book with me.   HATE IT when I rush off to loan it to somebody and forget that I haven’t yet written the review…    I just walked it over to my neighbor…   She’d never heard of it.

♦  I actually had the terrific idea that I would read the Reading Guide at the end of this book and answer them for this review.   THEN I read the questions.   Nah,  maybe some other day.

Perhaps…