"I go to seek a Great Perhaps."
The dying words of French poet Francois Rabelais propell Miles Halter to a new state, a new school and a series of firsts and lasts that will stay with him through life. Looking for Alaska, the first (and award winning) novel by (my joint favourite Youtuber) John Green is... well... amazing. As I began to get to know the lives, loves, flaws and fascinations of Miles/Pudge, the Colonel, Alaska, Lara and Takumi I couldn't shake the feeling that I was reading a modern day The Catcher in the Rye. Except - I could relate to this book.
I read The Catcher in the Rye early last year - partly because of that urban legend that ever lone gun man in America has owned a copy - and partly because I was trying to read all the books I thought I should read. It was good. I could appreciate the writing, the mood, the suspense, the irony... but I just couldn't relate to the protagonist. I appreciated it from an intellectual perspective but it never touched my heart or occupied my thoughts. Not like Looking for Alaska...
People are not just one thing. Green writes characters who can be kind and cruel, smart and dumb, self aware and gloriously oblivious. He captures the hope and pain of the in-between, those years that stretch from childhood to adulthood, with subtly. I was rivetted. I think I read the book in two days (another long journey home and nothing on telly helped somewhat!) So the tail of Alaska Young and impact on the people in her life becomes the forth book in my 52 of 2011...
"If people were rain, I was a drizzle and she was a hurricane"
Tomorrow I'll post my book list as it currently stands and the decisions that brought me to those pages.