30. Looking for Alaska, by John Green. Rather than actually reviewing this, I will be copying and pasting a discussion I had about the book with a friend over Facebook. Here ’tis. WARNING: Spoilers. Lots of them.
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Friend: What did you think of the end of Paper Towns?
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Me: liked it. Overall the book was kind of Looking for Alaska 2.0 with one fewer death, but I really liked that there was this big knight in shining armor theme and then nobody got together not because any external force was keeping them apart but because they realized it was a bad idea. I also enjoyed the reference to The Perks of Being a Wallflower and the much less subtle reference to Moby-Dick by means of a great white wall of cow.
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Friend: I found the pace of the book a little confusing; the beginning and end were so fast and the middle so slow. I suppose the author did that intentionally to highlight Q’s frustration and determination. I liked too how Q and Margo decided that this wasn’t the right time for them. To me that seemed like one of the only mature decisions made in the book.
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Me: Yes and no. On the one hand I think everyone is supposed to be immature in order to give Q this kind of chaotic world which he has to deal with and work from. I was, like most people, I’m sure, struck in the face by the final encounter with Margo about how she largely WAS just thinking of herself, and how even if she was just trying to get away, she still chose to go out “with a bang” and also mess with people’s heads, which was really, well, crappy of her to do. I think Q is mature. Yes, the 77mph chase seems a bit rash, but acting in the face of what was a really legitimate concern, I applaud his passion in trying to prevent her suicide. True, he was partially motivated by infatuation, but throughout the book we see that he’s not *blindly* in love with Margo. He does realize that he doesn’t even know who she is, and while that doesn’t mean he can’t have feelings for her, it does help him keep things at least somewhat in perspective. When Margo confronts him saying his desire was only to rescue the damsel in distress, he tells her she is wrong and he tells us as the readers that his response is mostly true. So we can see that he is trying to do the right thing first and make the feelings come second. I think one of his main motivations is that he feels duty bound. Yes, it is naive to say that finding Margo must become his responsibility and oh by the way I’m not going to share any of these clues with Missing Persons, but to be fair, Q looks around and for the most part he sees a world that doesn’t give a care about Margo or her disappearance at all, or nothing more than “What a crying shame. Oh look, prom shoes” and I think he feels a lot of indignation that humans just DON’T look out for one another and he is out to, partly, reconcile some of that.
By the way, Anonymous Friend above is awesome. If you know her, or if you are her, consider yourself blessed.
31. Also Known as Rowan Pohi, by Ralph Fletcher. I really enjoyed the premise of this book, creating a person on paper and then choosing to live as that person because life is better for him than for you, but I felt that the conflicts created by this choice were taken care of too easily in the book. I mean, yes, there is a reason presented in the end for why he is allowed to get away with it, but ehhh I was less than convinced. However, that’s probably because the book was written for 13-year-olds. If I were thirteen, this book would likely have been fine and in fact, if you know a thirteen year old boy, I recommend this book for him.
