By John Green© August 14, 2008
File size: 5.1 MB
227 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1101434208
Looking for Alaska is a captivating tale of a junior high school boy who goes away to boarding school in search of the Great Perhaps—something to break him out of the soul-sucking boredom that is his life. Like Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, there are a lot of elements in Looking that reflect the mind-set of a 17-year-old boy, including sexuality, cursing, drinking, smoking, and other things—all of which got this book banned.
But as I said in my review of Me and Earl, this feels normal for a high-school-age teen. And it wasn’t just the boys in this story that are like that; the girls are also focused on the same forbidden subjects. In fact, one of those girls, Alaska Young, is the main focus of this book. While she isn’t the main character, she is the driving force behind everything that happens. Without her, there would be no story. I can’t tell you much about her without spoilers, but I will say this: We all have our ghosts. Alaska Young’s ride her memory and her mind to the point that she is a bit of a tortured soul, which she hides behind a brash facade.
Told in the form of a timeline (how many days before and how many days after), the story is a countdown to The Main Event, and a count up of days that follow, and the consequences that ensue. As the days pass until TME, tension in the story mounts, and I found myself wondering what in the world was coming. (No, I don’t flip pages to peek ahead. That would spoil the thrill.) Pudge, the main character, is a good kid, as are his friends. But kids don’t always do the smart or wise thing, and when there’s fallout, they sometimes learn harsh lessons. Thus, after TME, as the characters all deal with the consequences, their own involvement in TME and how their actions may have influenced the outcome provoked questions in me—how would I have handled this? would I have done anything different? and so on. I loved this aspect of the story, which had already hooked me early on.
Personally, I suspect that, as with Me and Earl, it wasn’t the sex or cursing or drinking that really caused schools to pull this from their shelves. I think it was the incident the kids at the school face. Such a thing changes a person irrevocably. Perhaps those who wanted it censored didn’t feel young readers were ready for that kind of thing. In any event, the book has been repeated challenged since 2008, first for “graphic language and sexual content,” and later for “obscenity” and being “too racy to read.” Even earlier this year (2025), the book was challenged at the public library in Pickens County, South Carolina, by individuals who claimed it was “illegal.”
Regardless of all those real-world challenges, this is an excellent book that is well-written and evocative. I loved it. Highly recommended.