RECENZIE SCRISĂ DE RĂZVAN ANTON. A apărut inițial pe Teoriile unui blogger. 'You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.' (Alaska Young - John Green's eponymous heroine of 'Looking for Alaska') 'I go to  seek a Great Perhaps.' (Miles) I have chosen to begin this review of John Green's first novel with the above quotations because I find them most meaningful in defining the main characters and their life goals. 'Looking for Alaska' masterfully depicts the teenage years, hence its popularity among that age group. It brings together two opposing characters - Miles, a shy teenager who only wanted to do well in school and ultimately find his 'great perhaps' and Alaska, the wild, untamed girl, who loved playing pranks and breaking rules. Even though Looking for Alaska is John Green's debut novel, it came third on my reading list of his work, after The Fault in Our Stars and Paper Towns. Having these other two novels in mind, I could trace common patterns. During the first part, Looking for Alaska is very similar to Paper Towns, in that it is pretty much about teenagers having fun in different contexts and breaking all the possible rules. However, as a reader, you can't help noticing that there is something more to Alaska Young than just the rebellious teenager. From phrases such as 'Y'all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die' one can identify her as a troubled individual. All that Alaska does has a magnet effect on Miles a.k.a. 'Pudge' who deeply falls in love with her. 'If people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.' If I had to describe Alaska Young in two sentences I would only say this: one, she is a troubled teenager, with all the consequences that follow; and two, she is a convinced feminist, fighting against the objectification of women in all situations. She does not act as a catalyst, she is not extensively heroic, to put it in Miles' words, she is not 'The Great Perhaps'. At least not while she is alive... When Alaska becomes an in absentia character, she changes the lives of the ones who stood beside her. Her sudden death makes Miles wonder why she had to leave after she had changed him? After he could never be the same again? In truth, none of her friends could ever be the same again. Her death gave the Captain, Takumi, Lara and Miles a common goal. Somehow it made them grow, change, become more mature... united in sorrow. Of course, all of the main characters are teenagers and the place of the action is a school campus for the most part, so school subjects are mentioned. Few, however. Precalc, English, Latin, and... Religion.  And yes, the Religion teacher has a crucial role in the development of the plot. He is the one to ask the crucial questions. Make the students think beyond the material and the matter. He does for the teenage characters what the teenage characters do for you: give way to thought and introspection. Because the only conclusion you could reach as a reader is the same conclusion that Miles draws: ''It's very beautiful over there [...] I don't know where there is, but I know it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful.' As a reader, you also know that there is a 'there' and you do hope, with all your heart, even, that it is beautiful. The beauty of Looking for Alaska is that it becomes part of you. That you too, along with Miles search for 'the great perhaps'. And eventually you both find it!