25. Looking for Alaska by John Green

“How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!”

Looking for Alaska seemed to follow me around the internet, so I complied and ordered myself a copy not knowing what to expect other than what the cover told me - “First friend, first girl, last words”. I had assumed that the “last words” would be the protagonist’s own, but you are thrown off course by the first person narrative, the countdown to an event that changes everything that the rapidly decreasing numbers suggest is too early in the book to be the expiration of our main character, and his obsession with the last words of famous and influential people. I spent the better part of today devouring this book. I missed the whole young adult wave - I pretty much went straight from my Enid Blytons to adult books and this book (and others that I have read recently in my adulthood that would also fit into YA, notably The Book Thief and I Am The Messenger, both by Markus Zusak) shows me what I missed. It wasn’t the most beautifully written book in the world, but it was written well, and it meant something. It was a story with meaning without spelling it out to me which, imagining myself as a young adult and as an adult simultaneously, I appreciated.