My uni’s drama society is doing Looking for Alaska and I’m a little tempted to audition because they are just the greatest and I’m sure they’ll do brilliant things with this piece but I am all wrong for any of the parts and that makes me sad.
Favourite John Green book?
(WARNING: TFiOS AND LFA SPOILERS)
I didn’t cry during Alaska. I mean, I liked her character, but I guess I sort of expected her to die. Of course, I sort of figured Gust was going to die too, but I felt more of a connection to him than Alaska.
Yeah, I think I was the opposite. Actually, come to think of it, I wasn’t especially connected to any of the characters, although I liked almost all of them. Augustus lasted till close to the end, though, whereas Alaska died around midway through, so I had more reading time to miss her and feel nostalgic about how things were before she died.
This question should be, who hasn’t cried in a John Green novel, because if you haven’t cried then you are probably a robot.
Neither Jenna or I cried during any of his books so far. Honestly, I didn’t even feel a little sad when a character died, unless they were especially enjoyable, like Alaska. And even then, I was only like, “Damn, she was funny, that was the end of her funny, now there’s no more Alaska funny. Hmph.” But yeah!!! I suppose there are other bits that are supposed to pull you emotionally but death is the obvious one. Anywayz they are still great without the emotional substance.
“
We were kissing.
I thought: This is good.
I thought: I am not bad at this kissing. Not bad at all.
I thought: I am clearly the greatest kisser in the history of the universe.
Suddenly she laughed and pulled away from me. She wiggled a hand out of her sleeping bag and wiped her face. “You slobbered on my nose,” she said, and laughed.
John Green, Looking for Alaska
“
Don’t you know who you love, Pudge? You love the girl who makes you laugh and shows you porn and drinks wine with you. You don’t love the crazy, sullen bitch.
Alaska (John Green), Looking for Alaska
“
Someday no one will remember that she ever existed, I wrote in my notebook, and then, or that I did. Because memories fall apart, too. And then you’re left with nothing, left not even with a ghost but with its shadow. In the beginning, she had haunted me, haunted my dreams, but even now, just weeks later, she was slipping away, falling apart in my memory and everyone else’s, dying again.
John Green, Looking for Alaska
“
And then something invisible snapped insider her, and that which had come together commenced to fall apart.
John Green, Looking for Alaska
“
We were kissing.
I thought: This is good.
I thought: I am not bad at this kissing. Not bad at all.
I thought: I am clearly the greatest kisser in the history of the universe.
Suddenly she laughed and pulled away from me. She wiggled a hand out of her sleeping bag and wiped her face. “You slobbered on my nose,” she said, and laughed.
John Green, Looking for Alaska
“
What is an “instant” death anyway? How long is an instant? Is it one second? Ten? The pain of those seconds must have been awful as her heart burst and her lungs collapsed and there was no air and no blood to her brain and only raw panic. What the hell is instant? Nothing is instant. Instant rice takes five minutes, instant pudding an hour. I doubt that an instant of blinding pain feels particularly instantaneous.
John Green, Looking for Alaska
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Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia. (…) You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you’ll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.
John Green, Looking for Alaska
“
When adults say, “Teenagers think they are invincible” with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don’t know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.
Looking for Alaska, John Green
I’m feeling a little thrown after finishing John Green’s Looking for Alaska. There was barely a hint of emotion in me throughout the novel, but I still couldn’t help turning the page, captivated by the content and not the emotional pull that I find is usually the most compelling thing about fiction. I’d say it is my ideal novel and only hope that one day I can write something not-so-vague and enticing and wonderful like Green.
“
I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together, in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.
Looking for Alaska, John Green
I’m only just into the first chapter of John Green’s Looking for Alaska, but I’m already heavily engrossed in the novel. It kind of has a certain The Catcher in the Rye quality to it, I think. Free from pretense. I like this style of literature.
