Looking for Alaska by John Green

2012  

 

Miles Halter is sent to a boarding tertiary college. He is a shy young man who is fascinated by the last words of famous people. His father attended the same college and Miles has much to live up to: his father gained top marks and was also a quitter a rebel and trouble maker. Pranks were the order of the day.   

He tries to fit in and is befriended by other teens who smoke, drink and are pretty good at pranks. He learns how to join in. This includes Alaska Young.

Alaska is a feisty young woman who lives on the edge and is also a huge fan of literature. She seems incredibly confident but she has the impression that she always messes up.

And then she really messes up big time. It takes her friends a while to realise that she left abruptly one evening because she had forgotten to put flowers on her mother’s grave. She always blames herself for her mother’s death, and believes that her father does too: as a young child she wasn’t able to call 911 when her mother collapsed at home. Other mistakes in life, she believes, stem from that one incident.

She is over the limit when she sets off and crashes her car into a stationery police car that is attending the site of an overturned lorry.

The head teacher of the school followed her and reported that she didn’t even swerve. It could have been suicide. That is never fully established.

Whatever has happened, the friends she’s left behind will never be the same again.  

John Green really gets into the minds of these young adult and in particular into Miles’s.  

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The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

 

2017

This tackles many themes that interest the target reader.  John Green presents us with death, cancer, depression, grief, family relationships, peer relationships and some mild peer pressure. Green also explores the notion of fiction, both in his notes within the book and in the character of Peter Van Houten, a drunk and an egoist who has at one time been a writer. 

Importantly, Green encourages us to look at those who suffer from cancer as whole people, not just as victims of a disease.  These need not necessarily be nice people. 

Nice or not, the characters are richly drawn. As we have come to expect from Green, the characters are rounded and believable. Hazel narrates the story and has been given a convincing and consistent voice.      

       

The growth in protagonist Hazel is mild and somewhat negative though we also have plenty of positives:  love, romance, gentle sex and for some, survival.   

The book is some 316 pages long so has a respectable spine. The text s blocked and a serif font, with difficult  ‘a’s and ‘g’s is used.  A bordering on adult readership is further confirmed by quit demanding language and much abstract, philosophical thought.  This edition was published in 2017. The novel was first published in 2012.        
      

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

 

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

2017

 Aza has some mental health issues. She has what she and her therapist describe as intrusive thoughts.  Voices tell her to avoid situations that can introduce germs into her body. This leads at one point to her drinking hand sanitizer. It makes kissing problematic. She also has a festering wound on her finger where she has picked off a callous. She constantly changes the plaster on this and obsesses about keeping it clean. 

Alongside all of this she is a normal adolescent, struggling with relationships, with her mum, her best friend and almost boyfriend,   Davis.

In addition we have a mystery story.  Where has Davis’s father disappeared to?  Billionaire Russell Pickett has gone into hiding as the law is onto him.  Davis has to care for younger brother Noah.

As ever, John Green offers us a character with whom we can empathise. 

At the end of the book is a list of organisations that can help those who suffer from mental health problems.