{"id":6668,"date":"2025-09-24T07:30:52","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T11:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/?p=6668"},"modified":"2025-09-24T07:38:47","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T11:38:47","slug":"looking-for-alaska","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/24\/looking-for-alaska\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking for Alaska"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p> $\"A$ By John Green
\n\u00a9 August 14, 2008
\nFile size: 5.1 MB
\n227 pages
\nISBN-13: 978-1101434208\n

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\u2014something to break him out of the soul-sucking boredom that is his life. Like Me and Earl and the Dying Girl<\/a>, 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\u2014all of which got this book banned.<\/p>\n

But as I said in my review of Me and Earl, this feels normal for a high-school-age teen. And it wasn\u2019t 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\u2019t the main character, she is the driving force behind everything that happens. Without her, there would be no story. I can\u2019t tell you much about her without spoilers, but I will say this: We all have our ghosts. Alaska Young\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t 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\u2019t always do the smart or wise thing, and when there\u2019s 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\u2014how 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.<\/p>\n

Personally, I suspect that, as with Me and Earl, it wasn\u2019t 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\u2019t feel young readers were ready for that kind of thing. In any event, the book has been repeated challenged since 2008, first for \u201cgraphic language and sexual content,\u201d and later for \u201cobscenity\u201d and being \u201ctoo racy to read.\u201d Even earlier this year (2025), the book was challenged at the public library in Pickens County, South Carolina, by individuals who claimed it was \u201cillegal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless of all those real-world challenges, this is an excellent book that is well-written and evocative. I loved it. Highly recommended.<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"