I am recently on summer vacation right now, since we just got out of school yesterday. This year I was able to teach my students a unit on Adolescent Literature, in which I was able to add the book Looking for Alaska by John Green to my curriculum. I had first read this book last fall, having heard a lot of good things about the story (as well as the author's portfolio), and was excited that I could add it as one of the choices for the unit.
After I completed reading this book, I picked up another that he wrote, An Abundance of Katherines, which I also enjoyed. There's something about authors intertwining simple adolescent stories with interesting twists. I had heard a number of my students talk about how their favorite book of all time (in their short 16-17 year existence) is The Fault in Our Stars and they shared some plot points with me. Recently I have acquired a copy of Paper Towns as well and it is in que for one of the many books on my list to read this summer.
While going through this series of, apparently, intense John Green 101 this year, I have come to notice that he uses a very similar template for his stories. Similar to the way that Rick Riordan writes (Percy Jackson series & Co.) and Will Ferrall acts, it almost always follows the same story line with different names of characters and settings. There are slight differences here and there, but the structure remains in tact. Here are five things that I have noticed:
1. The story focuses around a pair of male friends with a primary female role being introduced.
2. The main male character is not popular or "cool" by any means and typically struggles with social situations.
3. The main male character is taken out of their comfort zone and placed into a new situation that shocks their foundation
4. A character dies or they're involved in some sort of mystery.
5. The ending is "ideal", but not always happy.
I know that these are common things that can happen in any story; however it's something I noticed this past year. I find it interesting how an author can do this; however, I guess Stephen King has been profiting from this for years. Don't get me wrong, just because the story line is predictable, does NOT mean the stories are not enjoyable. There are twists and turns that are built in that keep my ADHD attention in check.
By reading Looking for Alaska first, it keeps me on my toes when I read Green's other books. The reason being that it did not end how I expected. Being an English teacher and an avid reader, I can usually determine how a book is going to end by the half-way point. This book did not do that, and I will explain that below.
SPOILER ALERT: If you don't want to know how the book ends, stop reading now. Otherwise, I'm going to share why I liked the end of Looking for Alaska. So, you have been warned!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, in the story as soon as Alaska was going to leave the school (drunk & in the middle of the night), almost everyone can see her death coming. Her friends then take on the task of trying to determine whether the car accident that she was involved in, was truly an accident or a suicide. Okay, so since there is almost half the book left, obviously the search for the answer is the most important part; they will obviously find some clue to tie up the loose strings. Well...when the dust clears, there is still one single string that dangles right in front of you that is never tied. We never find out the answer to: did she kill herself, or was it really an accident. As much as my OCD tells me otherwise, I love it! I love the fact I never saw that coming. I love that I can still be surprised. I love the fact that it's left up to interpretation, and makes me feel more involved with the book trying to find my own little hidden clues. But most of all, I love the simplicity of it all.
I liked this so much, I had my students write their own ending trying to determine which side they stood on. It drove most of them crazy, and erupted into some pretty intense discussions/arguments/brawls.
On a final note, the other really cool thing, and by cool I do absolutely mean nerdy, that I love about this book is how you refer to reading it. To anyone who has read the book who asks "how far are you?" they know exactly what you are talking about when you say: "I'm about half-way through the after". It's like being in a secret club; you see the sly grin creep across their face because now we are speaking the same "language". It's the little things in life.
Go read the books. Leave me some comments about what you have noticed. Follow my blog for all sorts of weird reviews.
No comments:
Post a Comment