Looking for Alaska

Well, there are no warm and fuzzies after reading this book. I actually feel very drained and lethargic (although that could also be due to the fact that I am recovering from a stomach virus). Really, though, this book makes me feel like a dark and rainy day. Here's a quick synopsis of the book. Miles Halter lives in Florida and has no real friends. He decides to go to a boarding school in Alabama, the same one his father attended, called Culver Creek. His roommate is also from Alabama and his name is Chip, but his nickname is The Colonel. Alaska is a girl that also attends Culver Creek. As a kid her name was Mary, but when she was 7 or 8 years old (I can't remember) her parents let her choose her own name. She studied her father's globe for a long time and decided on Chad. Once her father told her that was a boy's name, she changed it to Alaska. Alaska and The Colonel spend their free time drinking and smoking. Miles gets dragged into this warped friendship with The Colonel and Alaska, which leads to Miles falling in love with Alaska. The problem here is that Alaska has a boyfriend named Jake, so she just leads Miles on, who is nicknamed "Pudge" by The Colonel. Miles is not pudgy, but rather tall and lanky. Anyway, nothing really exciting happens in the book until about halfway through when Alaska freaks out after a night of drinking and crashes her car into a cop car, killing herself. So, the entire second half of the book is about Pudge and The Colonel trying to piece together her death: was it a suicide or an accident? The book ends with Pudge and The Colonel pulling off a school prank that is supposed to be hilarious, all in memory of Alaska. I must have missed the hilarity. There was no excitement in this book, everything just WAS. There were, however, some memorable lines from the book:

The Colonel is getting dressed for Alaska's funeral and asks Pudge if he can wear his flamingo tie. Pudge responds by telling him, "It's a bit festive, given the occasion."
"Can't wear it to the opera," said the Colonel, almost smiling. "Can't wear it to a funeral. Can't use it to hang myself. It's a bit useless, as tie's go."

For some reason, I laughed right out loud after reading those lines. Maybe it's just the irony of having a tie you can't really wear - the world is full of those cheesy ties that are meant to be humorous, but doesn't that deem them practically useless???

The book is chock-full of references to the labyrinth of life and The Great Perhaps, and I guess that reading this book felt like making my way through a labyrinth. I'm happy to be out.

For the record, this book won the Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. I don't know if I'd want my kids reading this.