Looking For Alaska
Miles isn't a popular kid, and when the opportunity arises elects to go to his father's old boarding school Culver Creek 'to seek a Great Perhaps'. Once there he quickly makes friends with the cooler crowd by virtue of his new room-mate, and falls in love with a girl, the beautiful, unobtainable, Alaska
Looking For Alaska is a genuinely lovely, well written, reflective novel about life, love, loss and the search for meaning. What it feels like to be a teenage boy trying to become a man and find your place in the world.
In it's own right, for its own sake, I really enjoyed it. What struck me most though was how much it resembles Paper Towns, which I happened to read first, published in 2008, 3 years after this, his debut.
Two very similar boys in Miles & Quentin, two very similar girls in Alaska & Margot, are the leads in each, and it somehow feels like Paper Towns IS Looking For Alaska rewritten with a different high school setting and a different ending.
This, though it diminishes Paper Towns as a book and makes it somewhat superfluous it should not diminish Looking For Alaska seeing as it came first, but I have to say, a) I wish I'd read these the opposite way around and b) if I had not also read The Fault In Our Stars I might conclude that John Green only had one novel in him, recycled.
That criticism aside, I have to say that though I liked Paper Towns I really, really, thought Looking For Alaska was fab, and moving and so very worth reading that I have started recommending it about the place already.
Though the similarities were overt, I did love it, and really admired it as a piece of writing.
10/10
Showing posts with label John Green. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Green. Show all posts
Saturday, 18 October 2014
Thursday, 6 February 2014
Book #7 Paper Towns by John Green
Paper Towns
At the end of 2012 - I read The Fault In Our Stars, the young adult romance novel by John Green, and thought it was a classy affair with real crossover merit. Many people my own age have also read it and recommended it to me, including just the other day a friend of mine from uni days. A film of The Fault In Our Stars is set to appear at a cinema near you shortly.
What then of the rest of John Green's output? I've just got round to a second one of his now and chose Paper Towns.
This novel is told from the perspective of Quentin, one night school Queen Bee Margo who was once his friend and lives next door appears at his window and makes him join her on a series of revenge pranks in the middle of the night and then promptly vanishes leaving Quentin and his friends to decipher the mystery of her whereabouts.
There's a lot to like about Paper Towns and I'll start with that, for every girl with a complicated internal life there is something to identify with in Margo. She's the girl with a million records whose friends don't even know she likes music. The girl with a copy of Leaves Of Grass by Walt Whitman whose friends don't even know she likes poetry. The popular girl at the centre of things who knows she's faking it all.
She's the girl who keeps going missing because she needs to be found. And the girl who wants to stay lost too.
Margo is a great character - fascinating even, though perhaps with some annoying hipster tendencies.
Margo is the best thing about this novel - but she is also its biggest problem.
The book isn't about Margo. It's about Quentin. Quentin and his friends Ben and Radar - later joined by Lacey who are searching for Margo.
And there's nothing of note about any of them really; Quentin IMs his friends, they play video games, they scour the equivalent of Wikipedia for Margo clues and live out standard American High School Outsider tropes about which there is nothing original.
The only thing that is interesting about Quentin is 'Quentin in relation to Margo' - he's not interesting outside of her. The essential point that John Green is making about people with this novel and it's a great point and one particularly worth making to young people I think, is about how Quentin relates to Margo.
At the beginning of the novel Quentin counts it as a miracle that he ever knew Margo, that she ever happened to be his next door neighbour.
Quentin has an idea, a concept, of the person that he believes Margo to be, he's built it all in his mind, this idea that he has of her, is an impression that he's decided upon. It's an interesting lesson about how we, and it applies to adults too, carry ideals or mistaken beliefs about people based upon the narrative we have imposed upon them ourselves.
Margo, Quentin realises eventually is not a miracle, she's just a troubled girl and nothing more or less than that.
And this is such a good book for young people just for that lesson, but it's a mistake that adults including myself are often guilty of making; of expecting superhuman behaviour from people who we put on a pedestal who ultimately are just as human and fallible as we are.
A good book with a great secondary character 7/10 for Paper Towns the bulk of which didn't engage me - 10/10 for Margo herself.
At the end of 2012 - I read The Fault In Our Stars, the young adult romance novel by John Green, and thought it was a classy affair with real crossover merit. Many people my own age have also read it and recommended it to me, including just the other day a friend of mine from uni days. A film of The Fault In Our Stars is set to appear at a cinema near you shortly.
What then of the rest of John Green's output? I've just got round to a second one of his now and chose Paper Towns.
This novel is told from the perspective of Quentin, one night school Queen Bee Margo who was once his friend and lives next door appears at his window and makes him join her on a series of revenge pranks in the middle of the night and then promptly vanishes leaving Quentin and his friends to decipher the mystery of her whereabouts.
There's a lot to like about Paper Towns and I'll start with that, for every girl with a complicated internal life there is something to identify with in Margo. She's the girl with a million records whose friends don't even know she likes music. The girl with a copy of Leaves Of Grass by Walt Whitman whose friends don't even know she likes poetry. The popular girl at the centre of things who knows she's faking it all.
She's the girl who keeps going missing because she needs to be found. And the girl who wants to stay lost too.
Margo is a great character - fascinating even, though perhaps with some annoying hipster tendencies.
Margo is the best thing about this novel - but she is also its biggest problem.
The book isn't about Margo. It's about Quentin. Quentin and his friends Ben and Radar - later joined by Lacey who are searching for Margo.
And there's nothing of note about any of them really; Quentin IMs his friends, they play video games, they scour the equivalent of Wikipedia for Margo clues and live out standard American High School Outsider tropes about which there is nothing original.
The only thing that is interesting about Quentin is 'Quentin in relation to Margo' - he's not interesting outside of her. The essential point that John Green is making about people with this novel and it's a great point and one particularly worth making to young people I think, is about how Quentin relates to Margo.
At the beginning of the novel Quentin counts it as a miracle that he ever knew Margo, that she ever happened to be his next door neighbour.
Quentin has an idea, a concept, of the person that he believes Margo to be, he's built it all in his mind, this idea that he has of her, is an impression that he's decided upon. It's an interesting lesson about how we, and it applies to adults too, carry ideals or mistaken beliefs about people based upon the narrative we have imposed upon them ourselves.
Margo, Quentin realises eventually is not a miracle, she's just a troubled girl and nothing more or less than that.
And this is such a good book for young people just for that lesson, but it's a mistake that adults including myself are often guilty of making; of expecting superhuman behaviour from people who we put on a pedestal who ultimately are just as human and fallible as we are.
A good book with a great secondary character 7/10 for Paper Towns the bulk of which didn't engage me - 10/10 for Margo herself.
Thursday, 22 November 2012
Book #96 The Fault In Our Stars by John Green
The Fault In Our Stars
In The Fault In Our Stars, terminally ill teenager Hazel is forced to go to a support group for young people with cancer by her mother in the hope she'll make friends. Step forward Isaac and Augustus, a boy losing his sight and a boy who has lost his leg respectively.
Hazel and Augustus begin a romantic relationship, which is heartwarming and thoroughly believable. Though suffering from cancer the two become consumed with the need to decipher the secrets of (fictional) novel "An Imperial Affliction" by reclusive author Peter Van Houten, and having the answers to their question becomes a mission and distraction for them.
Earlier this year I read Stephen Chbosky's "The Perks Of Being A Wallflower" and questioned whether or not I had passed a certain age threshold when it came to identifying with teenage issues. The Fault In Our Stars was very different however; heartwarming without being sentimental or cloying, at times darkly humorous and refreshingly lacking in cliches or self help jargon, The Fault In Our Stars though about teenagers is not necessarily exclusively a teenage novel.
The best thing about this book was its honesty and believability in the face of terminal illness and death, which leads me to wonder about the author's personal experience in this area. That which I liked least was its "Americanised prose" a tonal quality/style which seems to pervade contemporary American novels, making their inner voice sound the same. British novels don't do this, or at least I don't feel they do, perhaps Americans feel they do, and this is a problem both sides of the Atlantic!
Though this is a very accessible novel for all ages, I particularly recommend it to 14-20 year old reader for whom I think this novel will earn a special place in their hearts. Certainly a cut above most novels in this age bracket. Put Twilight down and read this! 8/10
In The Fault In Our Stars, terminally ill teenager Hazel is forced to go to a support group for young people with cancer by her mother in the hope she'll make friends. Step forward Isaac and Augustus, a boy losing his sight and a boy who has lost his leg respectively.
Hazel and Augustus begin a romantic relationship, which is heartwarming and thoroughly believable. Though suffering from cancer the two become consumed with the need to decipher the secrets of (fictional) novel "An Imperial Affliction" by reclusive author Peter Van Houten, and having the answers to their question becomes a mission and distraction for them.
Earlier this year I read Stephen Chbosky's "The Perks Of Being A Wallflower" and questioned whether or not I had passed a certain age threshold when it came to identifying with teenage issues. The Fault In Our Stars was very different however; heartwarming without being sentimental or cloying, at times darkly humorous and refreshingly lacking in cliches or self help jargon, The Fault In Our Stars though about teenagers is not necessarily exclusively a teenage novel.
The best thing about this book was its honesty and believability in the face of terminal illness and death, which leads me to wonder about the author's personal experience in this area. That which I liked least was its "Americanised prose" a tonal quality/style which seems to pervade contemporary American novels, making their inner voice sound the same. British novels don't do this, or at least I don't feel they do, perhaps Americans feel they do, and this is a problem both sides of the Atlantic!
Though this is a very accessible novel for all ages, I particularly recommend it to 14-20 year old reader for whom I think this novel will earn a special place in their hearts. Certainly a cut above most novels in this age bracket. Put Twilight down and read this! 8/10
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