Alaska

Friday, January 10

I always wanted to write and I always took solace in words. My childhood was tumultuous to say the least but something vital happened to me when I was about 15 (which now looking back on it was a big year for books) I fell down my first youtube hole and spent four hours watching all of the Vlogbrothers Brotherhood 2.0 videos. It was 2007 and the project was just hitting its sixth month. John and Hank Green made videos back and forth and somewhere in there John mentioned a book he wrote called Looking for Alaska.

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I wandered into Barnes and Noble, grabbed a copy, then went home and read it all in one sitting under a pile of sheets and tears. I'd never felt so wholly understood by a book. I'd never seen a character so like me on pages. I'd never had feelings I'd always felt put into words I didn't know were the right words. I'd always loved books but this was my first favorite book. My world changed that summer night. I finally knew what I wanted to write.

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When I talk favorite books, I have my Big Three. I've talked before about Gatsby and The Book Thief and there is no better time than now to talk about Alaska. It's January 10th. It's Alaska Young Day.

I read this book every January to coincide with Alaska Young day. If you've read the book, you know the significance of January 10th. But even if the day wasn't significant I'd read the book once a year, just as I do with my other favorites. I miss these characters when I don't read the book. I think of them sometimes like I reminisce about my own friends. "Hey, remember the night in the barn with Pudge and Alaska? That was great." They are just as real to me as my friends. They've taught me just as much and helped me grow just as much.

I read this book at an interesting time. I was growing and changing and my life was turning around me quickly while I stood powerless to stop the ever growing wreckage. I could see myself going down a very dangerous road and I welcomed it because what else could I have done? What else was I worth?

In the character of Alaska I saw myself. Powerful, motivated, broken, sexy, charged, enraged, empowered. Volatile, scary, passionate, self destructive. Reading her story was like holding up a mirror, or a warning. We were driving down the same road at 95 miles an hour. The difference? She turned left and after reading her, I turned right. She saved me. She was my first building block in finding myself.

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I still see myself in her when I read the book. We talk the same still. Think the same often. I'm still as moody as ever and I have my days where answering questions won't happen and you just have to accept that my melancholy streak will never die. But after this novel I grow. Every time I read it I grow. I'm reminded of the dangers of holding to your past and letting it kill you. I grow with Pudge and learn the value of my own great perhaps.

John Green, though. He's been my favorite author since I as 15. His words have kept me up half the night way before The Fault in our Stars ripped all of our hearts out. He's influenced my writing style a lot, I'd like to think. I love his always honest, never preachy way of expressing emotion. He is relatable and open and never patronizing or belittling. He knows we are intelligent people and he knows how big our hearts are. His gift really cannot be touched and if I could be 1/8 of what he is, I would be pleased with my life.

His words always inspire me, whether I'm rereading a book of his or watching his weekly videos. He is so unwavering in who he is and always full of hope and inspiration, something I want to be as well. He makes me better and he makes me hope. He makes me want to write so I can save someone like his books saved me. In a few years when some fifteen year old girl feels so alone and lost, they can pick up my book and feel heard and healed, just like I was.

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In my second year of college before I took my time off, I was in a directing class. The final project was to direct our own short 20 minute play. When I was down at that university, I was incredibly unhappy and I was not writing at all (which explains part of the unhappiness). After tearing through script after script and finding nothing, I saw Alaska sitting on the edge of my bed staring at me with her emerald green eyes, a cigarette between her smirking lips. I knew what to do.

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I wrote a play based on the book. I wrote a twenty page script in one night and cried after I was done. I hadn't written in so long. I hadn't felt my words carrying me in so long. The misery seemed to clear and I felt like myself again. This book brought my words back to me and to this day that play is the piece of writing I am the most proud of. Now, if only I could find some way of getting John Green to read it! That would be the dream.

So on this day, January 10th, Alaska Young day, I celebrate this life changing book. I'll read the book, pour myself a revolting glass of Strawberry Hill, and hold an unlit cigarette between my lips for her. An eternal thank you to John Green for this book, the life changing member of my Big Three that shaped who I am, my career goals, and everything. Thank you Pudge, Takumi, Lara, The Colonel, and Alaska most of all.

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20 comments:

  1. i love this book so much. i remember hearing about it through tumblr, and like you i went out and bought it, came home, and read it in one sitting. it will always be one of my favourites. x

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  2. I love this book and John Green's writing style. But even more, I love when I am reading, and I find myself in the pages. That's why read, isn't it? To learn, to create ourselves, to lose ourselves, and hopefully to find ourselves- who we are and who we could be.

    I'm happy for you that you're writing again! I am always happier when I'm writing too. I'm glad I found your blog.

    xx- Lynn-Holly from The Attic

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    1. That's exactly why we read :) We like to see ourselves and see new situations for ourselves.

      Thank you for the comment :)

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  3. looking for alaska is going straight into my amazon cart and onto my reading list!

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  4. god. i could write pages and pages as a comment to this. alaska is my favourite. i haven't picked her up since summer, but i just reread abundance of katherines for the first time since high school. imagining the future is a type of nostalgia, get out there and make it happen.

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    1. That's how I feel too. I could write about this book forever. Trying to make this concise was a challenge and a half.

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  5. You are just so stinking cool. I'm so proud to have that book on my shelf, because you recommended. Honestly, honored.

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  6. I've never read that book!! I feel like such a reader-loser....i must go get.it!
    Isn't it exciting when.you find a character with you you can relate.so much? ...that's what happens to me when i read anais nin or frida kahlo or sylvia.plath! Oh i'm such a glutton, I want to be all of them.
    Keep writing!

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  7. what are the other two books in your top three?

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  8. you have done it again. you have written a book review that has me itching to read this particular book RIGHT NOW. you're good. that you are.

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  9. wow I never realised John Green the author was JOHN GREEN. I've heard of them as brothers (Hank and John) but I never watched their channel really apart from a few videos, that's why it never clicked... I actually read this book a while ago and I might have to read it again because it's sort of escaped from my memory! I remember not liking Alaska though. And I don't know why. Hmm. I also think I didn't like the book as much as you did (sorry!) but again, I don't exactly know why. Yes, definitely going to have another read. xxx

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  10. Oh I read that book last year, and it got me hooked on John Green! I'm now reading Paper Towns which so far seems awesome too..

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    1. Paper Towns is my other favorite of his. He's just too good!

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  11. EMMA! This post is truly a perfect tribute to Alaska, John Green, and his writing. John Green is the writer I want to be, too. Although TFIOS is his biggest (and latest) book, I read Looking for Alaska years before it and still harbor a very soft spot for it. And those quotes of his. Don't even get me started. Is there a more perfect person than John Green?

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  12. I definitely have to read that book.and keep writing you're so good at it.xx

    dreaming is believing

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  13. finally read this post. love love love. just thinking of the story makes me cry. i don't think I'm yet able to write about it. you know? xo

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  14. i just read this. i do not even know, if you ever see this comment, but now i FINALLY understand. You will be just as good a writer as he is, one day, this I firmly believe!
    x

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    1. I'm so glad you read this! I thought of putting the link to this post on your blog. I'm happy this helped :) And thank you so much for commenting my writing. That means so so much from you.

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  15. You could always check out his youtube channel and try to find a way to send it to him. It's called the vlogbrothers.

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Thank you for your words; they light a fire in my heart. You are lovely.