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Looking for Alaska follows a teenage boy, Miles Halter “Pudge,” who enrolls in a boarding school in Alabama on a quest for a “Great Perhaps.” He later encounters the beautiful, mysterious, self-destructive Alaska Young, whom he swiftly falls in love with. The depiction of grief, loss, and imagining humanity in complex manners is a societal defiance of an ideology of young girls and sensitive men. Pudge’s failure to understand the depths of Alaska’s underlying battles filled his idea of her and was beautiful and jaw-dropping, telling a tale of irreversible consequences and the impact two souls can have on each other.

A deep dive on the ins and outs of the critically acclaimed New York Times best selling author, with an ongoing career filled with philanthropic work and advocacy for social causes—John Green. 

I can most definitely recall The Fault in Our Stars being a raging hit in middle school, of course, including the movie adaptation. Truthfully, I didn’t give John Green a second look until I hit high school. Little did I know a world of new (groundbreaking) YA-lit would unravel before my eyes. 

The Green novel that I resonated with off the bat, Looking for Alaska, caught my attention during a time when I needed it most. The novel, a devotion to relationships, vulnerability, and cultural understandings behind the standard of young women and sensitive men. It shifts all singular thoughts you ever thought you had to concepts with a trillion words following. Not to mention, Looking for Alaska is Green’s first ever publication, and even being a new author he embodies uttermost experience and credibility. 

It goes without saying that our teenage years are determining, as we learn to connect and understand how to interact with our surrounding world at large. Relationships, how we craft them, and how they will inevitably un-craft shape us into young adults. Inside a whole lot of mushy-gushy YA literature lies a particularly interesting aspect, which connects with a specific moment in time, one you may even be experiencing in that moment. That’s the thing about John Green—he will find that specific feeling you thought solely belonged to you, and throw it on a page with an essence of absolute brilliance.  

Finding connection within a character who is ultimately damaged and lost, although completely capable of feeling and being loved, is a gateway to YA literature as a whole. Which is exactly how Green went about crafting his first ever protagonist, Alaska. Between her ever-changing mechanisms, undeniably free spirit, and intellectualistic personality, the character was made to elicit familiarity to the youth. Essentially, a beginning which reverberated and hit a home run for his future as a YA author.   

Green’s diehard dedication to capturing captivating moments of teenage life, along with his loyalty to kindness, empathy, and understanding creates a great culmination that guides the youth through reading. 

Not only has Green committed his talent to novels, but has released a number of podcasts and essay collections, putting the cherry on top of his artistry behind writing with superlative consideration of what it’s like to be human during youth agony. A despairing message in itself, which teens aspire for, that life goes on regardless of the suffering, relationships we shape become the undergoing motivation for all else. Including his continual devotion to charitable causes, enlarging his capacity for love and loss further.

So, even if you’re a bit late to the John Green party, there’s endless time to start. Begin your personal expedition now with each of his published works.

Additional Podcasts

Collaborations

Wise (groundbreaking) Words by Green

“The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.” —  Looking for Alaska

“The marks humans leave are too often scars.” —  The Fault in Our Stars

“We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken.” — Looking for Alaska

“What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person.” — Paper Towns

“The thing about a spiral is, if you follow it inward, it never actually ends. It just keeps tightening, infinitely.” — Turtles All the Way Down

“Art is where what we survive survives.” — The Anthropocene Reviewed 

“Actually, the problem is that I can’t lose my mind…It’s inescapable.” — Turtles All the Way Down 

“Sometimes you lose a battle. But mischief always wins the war.” — Looking for Alaska

Teenagers are striving for stories that do not whisper, but talk to them.

John Green’s stories are screaming.