​     John Green’s novel Looking for Alaska begins with Miles Halter, a teenage boy who likes to spend his time reading biographies, and who is not very popular at school. When his parents send him to a boarding school, he meets Chip and Alaska. Alaska is beautiful, funny, depressed, and unstable. She drinks, smokes, and ropes Miles and Chip into all kinds of trouble. One night, while all three friends are together drinking contraband liquor, Alaska jumps up panicked and runs from the room crying. The next day at a school assembly, the Dean of the school explains that Alaska was killed in a car accident: she was drunk and drove her car head on into a cop car. Miles and Chip are devastated and wracked with guilt for letting Alaska go the night before. After weeks of mourning her death, they begin to realize that something was not quite right: why did Alaska not swerve? Miles and Chip begin to believe that Alaska drove into the car on purpose because she was so depressed, and she saw the cop car as the way “out” of her depression.

     Green’s novel skillfully deals with the moral ambiguity that can exist within people. Alaska, who seems perfect on the outside, struggles with depression issues that run so deep, she eventually turns to suicide to escape them. Green’s novel takes the very real topic of depression and deals with it openly and honestly, trusting his readers to comprehend the complexities and maturity of this issue.



Green, J. (2005). Looking for Alaska. New York, NY: Dutton Books.

 

Reviews

To read The Examiner's review of Looking for Alaska, click here.  And read The Book Smugglers review here.

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Extras

Check out below to see John Green's video regarding the controversy over Looking for Alaska, and why John Green in NOT a pornographer.



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