Looking for Alaska

Looking for Alaska  By John Green

Fiction

Miles “Pudge” Halter, the main character in John Green’s Looking for Alaska spends most of his time obsessing about Alaska Young. Alaska is a classmate of his who is the gateway from his boring existence in Alabama to an exciting glamourous life at his new school, Culver Creek Boarding School. Pudge and his new group of friends spend the school year pranking and causing mischief, until something happens that changes everything.

In some schools, Looking for Alaska is banned because of a sexual scene, but if anything I think that the book should have been banned for its lack of strong female figures. John Green romanticizes the self-destructive Alaska whose only function is that of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Alaska is such an important part of the story, but her character is incredibly flat and one-dimensional. She doesn’t do anything except run around talking about how she wants to die. If this book is being taught in schools, most girls would want to be like Alaska, based on how Green idealizes her, which is why I suggest you to put this book back on the shelf with Bella from Twilight and where you keep the rest of your anti-Hermiones.