tumblr cringe or classic? - looking for alaska by john green

this episode we are putting it all on the line and delving into familiar, nostalgic territory. for our november episode, we’re exploring the theme “manic pixie dream girl” and reading one of the classic, ancient texts - looking for alaska by john green. in this episode we break down the manic pixie dream girl trope (from daisy buchanan to ramona flowers), plumb the depths of our adolescent tumblrs for john green-esque quotes, rap a little bit, and as usual, cry as we recite quotes to one another. will miles, alaska, the colonel and takumi win us over or will we be left frustrated by another young man’s hollow quest for self-discovery?

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Transcript

Bridget 0:00

I think that's a good idea because I do want to talk about the rapping.

Laura 0:07

Yeah. I thought you would. Hello and welcome to Talk Lit Get Hit, a podcast where we read viral books the internet won't shut up about and rate them lit or shit.

Bridget 0:19

We're your hosts Bridget and Laura, lovers of sad girl fiction and tragic endings, fearers of smart urban fantasy and the Who Did This To You trope. Join us as we pick apart all the books the internet loves and embark on a journey to figure out why.

Laura 0:34

Hello and welcome to a totally whimsical and completely unique podcast that's not like other girls. This episode, we're discussing a 2005 classic that provided Tumblr repost fodder for a generation and added to the ever-growing Manic Pixie Dream Girl Lexicon. This month we're reading Looking for Alaska by John Green. Bridget. Hello, hello. Hello, hello, how are you? I'm so well, how are you? I'm so well as well. So this month we wanted to explore the theme Manic Pixie Dream Girl, which is something that we probably have discussed off and on for various books throughout the span of the show, but never before has it had a dedicated episode. To set the scene for the uninitiated, I'm gonna explain what we mean when we say Manic Pixie Dream Girl. So this is a term that was first coined by a film critic, Nathan Rabin, referencing Kirsten Dunster's character in the film Elizabeth Town.

Bridget 1:26

Isn't that crazy? Yes. Second Elizabeth Town in as many episodes. Last time I thought about that movie, probably 2008.

Laura 1:33

What a fantastic tie-in. I'm so pleased with how this worked out. Everyone, go and watch it. Maybe we should do a bonus chapter on it. Oh my god, we don't have one for next month. Oh my god, we could. We should. So a manic pixie dream girl is a stock character in fiction, typically a quirky, eccentric, or optimistic young woman whose sole purpose is to help a brooding male protagonist sort of loosen up and embrace life. And they ultimately exist to further the male's personal growth, but they don't really have their own independent storyline or you know, nuance or struggles. So they are a real male fantasy.

Bridget 2:11

Also, my fantasy. I love a manic pixie dream girl storyline. Just give give them to me. I lap them up every time.

Laura 2:18

Me too. I am nothing if not a manic pixie dream girl dreamer? Is that what dreamer girl? I don't know. I think that's what they call them. But that I don't want to like have my life changed by a manic pixie dream girl. I just want to be the manic pixie dream girl.

Bridget 2:36

Yes, I want to be perceived as a manic pixie dreamer.

Laura 2:40

But also don't perceive me. I thought it could be painful but fun to dredge up some memories of like things that you and I have done in the past in an attempt to be more of a manic pixie dream girl. Can you remember anything in particular you might have? Sorry to make you go first.

Bridget 2:56

That's okay because I can't really remember much, if I'm being honest. I have a really poor memory. I think I've just forgotten everything I've ever done. The only things I could really think of was like I really thought that the popular kids were evil. In reality, I was just shy and scared of them. I know that we definitely did photo shoots where we were making fun of the photo shoots that the quote unquote popular people were doing. They were having like like wild parties and like taking photos, and we recreated them in my backyard with empty wine bottles that we didn't drink on the grass in front of us. So I know we definitely did that. I don't know if that really fits the bill, but that's about as much as I could come up with, other than like obviously just existing on Tumblr at the time. How about you?

Laura 3:43

I think I probably have more than I care to admit I could pull upon. But one thing that sprung to mind was when I used to need quote unquote alone time during lunch. Um, and this pretty much just involved me walking away from the group without saying anything in the hope that someone would come and find me and just check in on me. And I kind of thought it added like an air of mystery to my personality, but really I think it was just social anxiety because often I would genuinely feel quite overwhelmed.

Bridget 4:12

Did anybody go and check on you?

Laura 4:13

Yeah, but not like it was never my crush, which is never the one you wanted.

Bridget 4:17

Yeah, always it'd be like fuck off, fuck off. I'm trying something new. I'm trying to be mysterious. Oh, that's great. Oh, that's so good. I don't remember you ever doing that, but as I said before, bad memory.

Laura 4:36

I guess I was also trying to get stuff started with photo shoots as well, because I think after I discovered Frankie magazine, it was game over for me. And I remember putting a lot of effort into making really artsy MySpace pictures. I have two that stand out in my mind. One was me, it was like quite an underexposed, dim photo of me sitting in a blank room. I think it was at like my rich aunt and uncle's house in Sydney. And I was like, this is good. Uh and I was sitting cross-legged on a chair, and I had my favourite floral dress on, and I had my hair all messed up over my face and my kind of my hands on my head as if I was like screaming. And that was just that was the photo. Me on the chair. Amazing messed up, tortured. 10 out of 10 would re-blog. Yeah. And the other one I remember was that um, I mean, it was a big personality trait of mine to hate sport, hate anyone that liked sport. Um, you know, just general disdain for sport on the whole. The footy, the whole endeavor, yeah. But again with the fearing the cool kids. Yes. And so I had um MySpace profile pick for a while that was me wearing, I think, like a Canterbury jersey of my dad's, and I was standing with my hands on my hips, and I had like a black box blocking out my eyes with text over the top that said, I hate football. I remember that like it was yesterday. So that's seen in my brain. What was the point of it? I love it. There's so much that I would have done. I can't single it all out. Obviously, when you're a teenager, I think this is like a major endeavor for many teenagers, but I was just trying to be different than everyone else, cool and mysterious, have a fully formed personality before my brain was even like at capacity, and just prove my own uniqueness every day.

Bridget 6:26

You were trying to find you great, perhaps. We have already briefly mentioned Tumblr, but I thought it would be fun to do a quick little quiz. We haven't done a quiz for a long time. It's actually been way too long between drinks. Way too long between drinks. And I've collated this independently from Laura. I'm gonna give Laura a quiz, and it's a who said it quiz. Because personally, for me, like in high school, wasn't too keen on John Green. I had a John Green of my very own. Laura Morley was my John Green. And I used to love reading her little Tumblr text posts, and so I'm gonna test her on how well she knows them. So we've got Who Said It? Laura, me, don't get excited for that one, and John Green. So we're gonna see if she knows her stuff.

Laura 7:13

I think you're forgetting how obsessed with myself I am, but I'm ready to go.

Bridget 7:18

Okay, hang on. The first one doing stuff never feels as good as you hope it will feel. John Green. Yeah. It's from Paper Towns. Okay, one for one. The next one. I want my house to be an old house with plain walls. I want there to be a bare wall at the end of the entrance. I want to paint on it. I'm so glad you're here.

Laura 7:41

Is that you? No. Is it me? Yeah.

Bridget 7:46

That is stunning. I love it. Actually, some of these when I was reading them brought a tear to my eye. There was a few that I thought were maybe a little bit too personal to include, and I was like, oh my god. Okay, the next one. This is a bit of a long one. I'm trying to read more. I'm trying to sleep more. I'm trying to quit the job I've had for four years this Sunday. I'm trying to study. I'm trying to think of a philosophical, open-ended question regarding the nature of education. I'm trying not to worry, and I'm happy. That's gotta be you. Yeah. Oh, that's beautiful. That's the only one that I found. So spoiler, there's no more for me.

Laura 8:23

But that is oh, that is a good one though.

Bridget 8:26

Yeah, it was quite nice. I don't know what I was talking about, but didn't quit that job I had for four years. That was Pete's Hut, and I stayed there for at least ten years. But I did write the letter. Okay, next one. I will never get those summer feelings back.

Laura 8:41

I think that's me. Yeah, that is me. God, she's good.

Bridget 8:46

You're gonna get a writing deal out of this, please. Okay, um, the next one. Yesterday, when we were driving home, there was an old woman on a farm standing alone in the field with her face thrown towards the sky and the sun shining down on her skin. The pigeons were flying above her head and she was smiling. It was beautiful.

Laura 9:04

Is that Sean Green? No, it's you.

Bridget 9:12

What the hell am I even talking about? I really thought the pigeons would give it away. Well, I thought that was like a red herring. A red pigeon. Yeah.

Laura 9:23

Loved it. I loved it. Actually, why can't I write like this anymore?

Bridget 9:27

I think you could. I think you just need to put your phone down, as we'll talk about soon. God damn it. Okay. We all know how loving ends, but I want to fall in love with the world anyway, to let it crack me open. I want to feel what there is to feel while I am here.

Laura 9:43

That's John Green. Yeah.

Bridget 9:44

Yeah. That's from The Anthropocene Reviewed. Okay. I almost felt like he was there in my room with me, but in a way it was better. Like I was not in my room and he was not in his, but instead we were together in some invisible and tenuous third space.

Laura 9:56

John Green. Yes.

Bridget 9:57

From the Fault Now Stars.

Laura 10:01

What gave that one away was that when I started studying my library degrees, we were talking a lot about libraries as a third space. Oh yes. And I remember being like, I don't know what this third space is, but it sounds way too like pie in the sky for me. I don't know what we're talking about. That's so funny.

Bridget 10:17

Okay, and this is the last one. I want you to think about who the first person you shared your music with was. And I want you to think about all that followed. And I want you to think about what you are now and think about what an awful shame it all is. Is that me? Yeah. Once again, so beautiful.

Laura 10:35

Tears to my eyes. Oh man, I wish I kept a better diary. Because what the hell were any of those even about? Don't know, but I love them. Gorgeous.

Bridget 10:44

I think you could just trawl through and just make a new narrative and just sell it. True. Yeah. I mean, if you could just write any one, but if you didn't want to.

Laura 10:53

I've got nothing left.

Bridget 10:55

Well, that was so fun. Thank you so much.

Laura 10:58

Thank you so much. That's great.

Bridget 10:59

I feel like you were pretty good. I didn't keep the count. Yeah. 50-50.

Laura 11:03

We really are so addicted to Manic Pixie Dream Girls because when we were trying to decide what to read for the scene, there were so many books that we were throwing into the ring. But not just books, movies as well. It's clearly a genre that we love. Yes. We have what summer in 500 Days of Summer. Oh, the blueprint. Oh, our angel. You threw in Daisy from The Great Gatsby. Probably the original Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

Bridget 11:29

Love her.

Laura 11:30

I would put Clementine from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in there. Have you ever watched that?

Bridget 11:35

No. And I'll spoil the next two, haven't seen them either. So I have some cinema ahead of me now that I've decided to like movies.

Laura 11:42

Yeah. Well, Ramona Flowers and Scott Pilgrim versus the World, 10 out of 10. And Sam and Garden State. That was a big one for me as a 16 to 17.

Bridget 11:53

When I was reading your Tumblr, there was probably 17 mentions to Garden State.

Laura 11:56

So I reckon I haven't watched it since I left high school because I already had the sense that it wouldn't have aged well.

Bridget 12:02

Oh, really? Yeah.

Laura 12:03

Is that Zach Braff?

Bridget 12:05

Mm-hmm. Okay. Interesting.

Laura 12:06

And then I think after he dated Florence Pew, I was like, yeah, nah, I know. I've had enough. You're letting the team down, Zach. Stop looking exactly like her father, goddammit.

Bridget 12:17

So I think Alaska is in great company here. But first of all, let's talk about how we felt before we started to read for the podcast. Have you read this book before?

Laura 12:25

Apparently I had. Apparently, I read this in 2018 and I rated it three stars. I have no memory of this. But I think if somebody had said to me, hey, tell me the plot of looking for Alaska, I could have given you maybe like 40 to 50% of the key points. I had watched the Hulu adaptation of it in 2019, and that was great. I really loved that. And so I think a lot of my memories of the book were actually just memories of the show. It was great. It had a banger soundtrack. There were these kind of like uh indie acoustic covers of To Be Alone With You by Safion Stevens and one of I Will Follow You Into the Dark by Deathcab for Cutie. Amazing. That sounds so good. Yeah, it was so far up my alley.

Bridget 13:11

How about you? I have read this before. I read it in a pre-Goodreads time. So I had marked it as a three-star as well in 2016 when I first um started using Goodreads. But I don't know when. The copy I have is from 2012, but I think it must have been from an op shop because it is so battered, and I had no idea, not a scary of a concept about what happened in this book. I wasn't really into John Green too much. I was a bit too much, not like other girls, to lean in too far. But I did pick up The Fault in Our Stars once in a ferry terminal in Wales, and I read it on the ferry to Dublin, and that ended about as well as you'd expect, just crying in public. I never quite got that John Green high again, though. All of his other books kind of merged into one in my mind. So I was coming into this book thinking, oh yes, Manic Pixie Dream Girl goes missing, and the gangli teenage boy has to go looking for her on a road trip, and there's something about turtles and last words, and lots of people have the same name. So I'm so I have to say my expectations were pretty low.

Laura 14:21

Oh yeah, I don't actually think I sent. I also thought it was gonna not be good.

Bridget 14:28

If you are looking for a spoiler warning as well as Alaska, then this is it. In this episode, we'll discuss explicit aspects of the plot and characters of Looking for Alaska. If you're not ready to hear them yet, pause the episode, hit subscribe, and come back when you're finished reading.

Laura 14:41

Content warnings for Looking for Alaska include alcohol consumption and abuse, drug use and abuse, death of a friend, sexual themes, and suicide.

Bridget 14:50

Before, Miles Pudge Holter is done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the great perhaps even more. Francois Ravelay, poet. He heads off to the sometimes crazy and anything but boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe.

Laura 15:10

Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young. She is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the great perhaps, and steals his heart. Then, after. Nothing is ever the same. Alright, Bridget. How did you feel following a 2025 reread of Looking for Alaska by John Green? 20 years later. Amazing.

Bridget 15:42

Wow. Um, I was kind of blown away by this book. I was like, what? He just had that right blend of nostalgia with like pre-phoned life, high school life, Tumblr style writing. The way I flew through it was astounding. I think I read it in like less than two hours. And I had a great time. How about you?

Laura 16:05

Yeah, I am not ashamed to admit I was utterly swept away by this book. Amazing. I loved it so much. I don't know why I rated it three stars. And something that I've been thinking is that I really think my reread of this book has benefited from me being older, which is so contrary to so much of the other YA that I've read. I think 2018, or whenever I initially apparently read this, was too close to being a teenager to get what I needed to get out of it. Like I think I either had to be in that like 15, 16, 17-year-old frame of mind, or it has to be now. Because it's only now that I've started to be able to look back on the experience of being a teenager with a little bit of grace. Yes. I actually think when we reread our diary entries for Bridget Jones's diary, that was like a very big turning point in my perspective on like what it means to be a teenager because those diary entries were so tone-deaf and they were so dramatic. And like I just think, isn't that just it? And hasn't it always been that way? And so to see that reflected in this book, I was like, yeah, that's it. That makes sense. That's the whole experience, and it was perfect.

Bridget 17:24

Yeah. I was thinking the same thing. I was thinking a little bit about it and like why I was being such a hater in like 2016 whenever I read it. I was thinking that at the time I was like deep into uni and work. I just saw these teenagers that had like little to no responsibilities. I think I was just feeling jealous. I was seeing like these people having great times, like not really doing any work, not having any repercussions for their actions. And I was like, must be nice for some. So I think that might be it. And I think now I'm a lot more sympathetic to teenagers and like the big feelings that you have when you're a teenager. Definitely more now than I was then. It is very interesting how we change and morph and grow.

Laura 18:08

It really is. I was so, so fully prepared to hate this book. There wasn't really a moment where I was like, okay, like cracking my knuckles, like rubbing my hands together, being like, this is where I get John Green, like this is the death blow. But I will say I think I spent the first half of the novel, like the before stage, being like, Yeah, we're gonna skewer him. And then I spent the after stage distraught. Yes.

Bridget 18:35

Yeah, there were so many times where I was like, here we go. And the amount of notes that I had.

Laura 18:41

You have so many amount of notes.

Bridget 18:43

And then it's so funny because like it's the first third of the book, nearly every single page is folded down, and then the last half I was obviously just like living the dream, having a lovely time. So yeah, I really thought this episode was gonna be a lot different than how it turned out. Yeah. Relieving for some. Oh my god, this is just like that scene in 500 Days of Summer, Expectations versus Reality.

Laura 19:06

This is so manic fixed cinemas. So let's talk about John Green because we both weren't really in John Green's orbit. We weren't there at the time and place of his meteoric rise to power on the internet. So John Green is an American author and YouTuber. His books have sold more than 50 million copies in print worldwide, uh, and they include the likes of Paper Towns, The Fault in Our Stars, An Abundance of Catherine's Turtles All the Way Down, Will Grayson, Will Grayson, and his more recent nonfiction works like The Anthropocene Reviewed and Everything Is Tuberculosis. Looking for Alaska was actually his debut novel, and it was published in 2005. That surprised me. I thought it was going to be like a 2010, 2011. And I was quite shocked. Starting on the 1st of January 2007, John and his brother Hank launched the Vlogbrothers YouTube channel. Um, and this was a series of vlogs submitted to one another on alternating weekdays. I never watched any of these YouTube videos, but I think I was like vaguely aware of this happening on the internet. And this is maybe one of the earliest experiences I can remember of being put off by the intensity of fans and feeling like that space is not for me. I like that ship has sailed, I've missed that train. Yes, and I'm not sure I care to be on it.

Bridget 20:25

Yeah, I had never really been a big YouTube consumer. I had really bad internet when I was in high school. Like you could not get a YouTube video to load if you had less than three hours.

Laura 20:34

So painful, actually.

Bridget 20:36

It was not good, and Tumblr probably didn't help it either. I never really heard of him though, I think, until I read The Fault in Our Stars. And I also find that he has that special brand of millennial that really irks me. Like in my mind, he lives in San Francisco or Chicago in a converted factory loft.

Laura 20:53

He's got the mustache tattoo.

Bridget 20:55

Yeah, and he's got like he got married and he was wearing the um the braces and the hat and he drinks cold, drip coffee, listens to arcade fire, hello doggo shirt with tacos on it that he wears every Tuesday. So um, probably, if I'm being honest, also thought I was too indie to be on that side of the internet as well. I was like, give me a Sylvia Plath, Emily Bronte any day.

Laura 21:20

Me too, but you know what? I clearly wasn't because looking as I read this book, I was like, oh, holy shit, I reblogged that. I remember reblogging that and that. Oh, another one. More. Like, there was so many.

Bridget 21:37

Before we start talking about this, and I know I've been very positive so far, but I do have something I want to get off my chest about Miles. Why was he Beaufit Swan? And why was Alaska Edith Cullen? Why is this book literally Life and Death by Stephanie Meyer?

Laura 21:56

Who copied?

Bridget 21:57

This is true. Which one who's copied? Obviously. Stephanie Coffey.

Laura 22:01

Sorry, Stephanie, allegedly. Don't sue me. They're the same characters. It was the same brand of excruciating horniness. Yes. He creeped me out so much.

Bridget 22:15

So Miles is the creepy little boy, Miles Pudge Halter. Terrible name. Terrible name. Terrible nickname. He is the main character. He is the narrator. He has the quirky little talent of learning and memorizing famous people's last words. Which is funny. The one thing I remembered correctly about this book is the last words thing. And it I think about that often. Do you? Yeah. Weirdly. In what way? Like I would hear an example of someone's last words and I'll be like, ah, that's like that book. Which I didn't know was this one. But he transfers to the boarding school Culver Creek in search of his own great perhaps. He's nicknamed Pudge by his roommate, who has another nickname, which is the Colonel. And he's nicknamed Pudge because he is tall and skinny. Miles is obsessed with Alaska Young, who mostly is not attracted to him. How did you feel about Miles other than his obvious creepiness?

Laura 23:09

I think I felt that Miles was actually a very real and true character. And despite the obvious creepiness, not being put off by that. Somehow for this book, I was able to achieve what I probably have not been able to do with so many of our other books, which is just contextualize it in the time and place and contextualize these people for what they are, which is teenagers. And so he's thinking all these creepy things, but he's also not really acting on them. And then I think the best thing about Miles, although, yes, undeniably, he's using Alaska as a vehicle to chase the whims here in his life and like find out about himself. In the second part of the book, he has so much more agency and accountability in his story. And so I liked that journey for him.

Bridget 24:00

I liked how flawed he was as a character. Uh he was I thought that was quite realistic. He was so smart, he had great grades, and he tried his best at school, but he was still messy, selfish, wrong about lots of things. He was able to apologise, he was able to see things from other people's perspectives, and he would nearly always realize pretty quickly when he'd done something wrong and try to make amends in a like a an age-appropriate way. I think you could see him growing up over the course of the book. Like sadly, you know, Alaska's death probably forced him to grow up a little bit more. And I think at the start, his like aloofness and sort of holier than thou and like smarter than thou attitude was like really annoying me. As I just kept reading, I just sort of realized that I think that attitude was like protection or armour because he had no friends. Like I'm not sure if he was technically bullied, but he wasn't having a good time. And I think that him pretending like he didn't care about anybody was his protection from that vulnerability, I guess.

Laura 24:59

Yeah, and I also thought that aspect of his personality was very familiar because I mean, you and I in high school, we were not the Alaska youngs of the world, we were not the colonels, we were not Takumi, we were not like edgy or cool or pushing the boundary in the slightest way. In fact, we would have come in hot to this situation to be like, I am here to break the mould, I am a rat. Dobbing, dabbing, daubing, I'm telling mum.

Bridget 25:27

Yes. When they chucked him in the water with the duct tape, and they were all and they were all like, you can't tell. Oh yes, you can. You could have died. Yeah. You can tell. That's fine. And that's that's the way I want to live my life. Same. But I can support these kids. I was thinking a lot about the fact that these characters are children, like they're teenagers, but they were children, and they were quite sexualized in a way, written by an adult. I never really got anywhere with this because like YA is a genre, and it's not like teenagers are out here writing as a full-time job. But when I was reading Miles describing Alaska's curves and breasts and like how sexy she is, and breasts again and then again, and then one more time, her breasts, I was feeling a little bit icky thinking of a grown man writing this on the page. But I think in order to keep teenagers reading, there needs to be stories like this because there needs to be some sort of middle ground between the books you read when you're 12, like I don't know, Babysitter's Club, Saddle Club, Snow Pony, and the books that you read like Icebreaker or God forbid Credence. It just needs to be something in the middle. And I think that this book is that middle. I know it's been censored a lot because it mentions sex and you know there's that horrifying blowjob scene, but I think that we need to keep teenagers reading by writing about things that teenagers are interested in and things that happen to teenagers. So I think I just had to move aside how creeped out I was about reading about a horny teenage boy. Yeah. Like for the greater good.

Laura 27:08

Yeah. I think so too. And I was looking through John Green's website. He has really, really extensive FAQs about his different books. And one that I saw said, Why have your books gotten cleaner over time? He says, I think the fault in our stars is, for lack of a better word, dirtier than Catherine's or Paper Towns. It certainly contains more sex and F-bombs. But Alaska is my dirtiest book so far, I suppose, maybe except for Will Grayson and Will Grayson. Why? I wanted to write about sexuality and substance abuse because it felt true to the characters who are in many ways more screwed up and self-destructive than the characters in my other books. When you're a teenager, you're doing all kinds of important things for the first time. And in writing Alaska, I wanted to deromanticize some of those firsts. When I sit back and think about it for a second, I don't really have a problem with this because teenagers kiss, teenagers have sex, some teenagers have babies, and the content in this book is not really promoting any of those things, but it does portray a very real experience, and it does show the awkward and painful reality of it. So I think it's like not playing into that naivety of saying like none of that ever happens and it never will, but it's definitely not glorifying it. I felt the same way about Miles's stream of consciousness about Alaska. Yes, it was disgusting to read, but unfortunately, teenage boys are disgusting little creatures at times. And I think the thing that was good about Miles was that, yeah, he had these thoughts of like, oh my god, I'm wearing underwear, shorts, then there's two blankets, and then she's wearing shorts and underwear, and we're practically doing it because she's sitting on my lap. Like he had those creepy little thoughts, and they were just thoughts. Yes. They were just something that stayed in his head. He was never predatory, he was never outwardly creepy, he never made Alaska feel, I guess, objectified. And I think that's an important difference to note. Well, we've spoken a lot about Miles. So, how about Alaska? How did you feel about Alaska Young?

Bridget 29:12

I was fully prepared to be supremely irritated by Alaska. It never eventuated. There were times where I was quite close, but I really liked the way she was written. This kind of smart was the blueprint for me, and I think should still be the blueprint. That's so true. Because she's well read, she's sarcastic, but never outwardly mean. She can remember quotes, she can remember who said them. And I feel like in high school that was my goal. I just wanted to be like smart, well-read, funny. I think unfortunately, phones have taken that away from me. I can't remember a thing. I'm just looking at my phone all the time. So I think we need to go back to an Alaska young lifestyle.

Laura 29:51

Here, here. What did you feel about Alaska? I also really liked Alaska, and that's so funny that you say that about her being the blueprint of the type of manic pixie dream girl you want to be. Because I had the exact same thought when Miles stayed at Colver Creek for Thanksgiving and he and Alaska had that checklist of things to do. I've highlighted the section it says why Pudge Should Stay at the Creek for Thanksgiving, a list by Alaska Young. One, because he is a very conscientious student, Pudge has been deprived of many wonderful Colville Creek experiences, including but not limited to A. Drinking wine with me in the woods, and B getting up early on a Saturday to eat breakfast at McAnedible and then driving through the Greater Birmingham area, smoking cigarettes and talking about how pathetically boring the Greater Birmingham area is. And also, C, going out late at night and laying in the dewy soccer field and reading a Kurt Vonnegut book by Moonlight. I was like, hell yeah. Yes. That sounds great. Did I write that as a Tumblr post? Where can I sign up for that?

Bridget 30:46

This is something I've been feeling a lot lately. I just need to throw my phone into a bush and not use it anymore. It makes me annoyed. The people on there make me annoyed. Hot take after hot take gets exhausting. And I think we need to live as Alaska Young lived in 2005. Bored by her surroundings but still having a good time. Well sorry. We need to live like Alaska Young. No, we need to live like Alaska Young lived, not her actual life.

Laura 31:20

There was a bit right when Alaska was first introduced to Miles. They're talking about the book, The General in His Labyrinth, um, that she's obsessed with. And she says, It's a historical novel, so I don't know if this is true, but in the book, do you know what his last words are? No, you don't. And I'm about to tell you, Senor parting remarks.

Bridget 31:41

And I was like, oh no.

Laura 31:44

Is this the origins of Senorita Awesome? I get freezing. And like, you know, there's tendencies that aren't super attractive in anyone. Like when she says, You're smart like him, she said, quieter though, and cuter. But I didn't even just say that because I love my boyfriend. Yeah, you're not bad either, I said, overwhelmed by her compliment. But I didn't just say that because I love my girlfriend. Oh, wait, right. I don't have one.

Bridget 32:15

Okay, Miles. Somebody gonna match my freak.

Laura 32:22

When she's talking about her life's library, and she says, so I always have something to read, but there is so much to do. Cigarettes to smoke, sex to have, swings to swing on. I'll have more time for reading when I'm old and boring. Big on the swings to swing on though. Yeah. I love a swing. That is a that was a corner. Actually, I've turned a tragic corner in that. No. I think I've become like a little bit prone to motion sickness the older I've gotten. That's bad. I can't sit backwards on buses or trains without being like sad for you. Hope I'm gonna overcome that.

Bridget 32:57

I'll wear those goggles on the swing if I have to. Yeah. It's so funny that you've picked that page because I had something on that page to talk about Alaska as well. And one of the parts where I was quite close to being like, okay, Alaska was when they're walking back to their dorm. Oh she turned to me as we made our way through the darkness and said, When you're walking at night, do you ever get creeped out? And even though it's silly and embarrassing, you just want to run home. It seemed too secret and personal to admit to a virtual stranger. But I told her, Yeah, totally. For a moment she was quiet. Then she grabbed my hand, whispered, run, red, red, red, red, and took off, pulling me behind her. That's so embarrassing, but also iconic.

Laura 33:43

Iconic. And honestly, like there were so many sections like that where I thought, this is really excruciating dialogue. But I just again, I think, thanks to having recently read my own diary entries from this period of my life so recently, things like that hit pretty hard. Yeah. It like it felt like a big thing to admit any shortcoming, whether it's something like, yeah, I kind of get scared or I kind of want to go home. Yeah, it feels like you're making a lot of ground. So yeah, to go against the grain or to like appear as not cool or something. Any connection with your crush is a major connection.

Bridget 34:16

Yes. And if you have like had no friends, you've don't have anyone in your life that you can be yourself with, and then this pretty girl grabs your hand, like wants to like be a little bit like playful and like silly, you would instantly fall in love with her. 100%. Something I was really thinking though was like imagine the book that we could get about Alaska if Miles wasn't the narrator. It it would have been like infinitely times more interesting. And I this is something that I think about like whenever I think about 500 days of summer, like if Tom wasn't in the picture, what would Summer be doing? I think it would be really interesting.

Laura 34:55

Um How did Daisy feel about Gatsby coming back?

Bridget 34:58

Yeah, like gaps and silences once again.

Laura 35:00

Like we hated them in high school, but they're always just coming back. And we're also always very vocal about I don't want novels from another character's perspective. But wind it back.

Bridget 35:12

Yeah.

Laura 35:14

Anything that we say, we could that you can't use it against us in the future. I think the novel obviously does do a good job of showing Alaska as like a very flawed and complex character. But I don't know where I land when I wonder if it did enough to kind of challenge that manic pixie dream girl stereotype. I think it is positive because Miles does have those lines of thinking around, oh, it's too little too late for me. Like I should have got to know her while I was here. I should have looked outside my own experience. I should have realized she didn't belong to me. I should have realized other people cared about her. At least there's that. Yeah. But she is still the catalyst for that development in him.

Bridget 35:54

Is this trend of like, you know, male-centered female characters? Is this the reason why we love books that we currently love so much? Like, you know, books about messy young women who are like trying to recover from things that have happened or like make their way through life. Sometimes there's a male love interest, but it's not really the main focus. Like it's more about like friendship and finding your place in the world and you know, grappling with identity and stuff. Is this coarse correction of that? A lifelong retaliation. It's like I don't want to read about this. The reason why I liked reading these books is because the girls are interesting and now I'm only going to read about the girl from the girl's point of view.

Laura 36:31

That's true. I really love that line of thinking. Because I genuinely sometimes feel like repulsed when I think about having to read from a male's perspective, especially any element of romance. Yeah. I'm sick of hearing about it. I don't want to hear about it anymore. Like, I don't care how the woman made you feel. Yes. What did you do to her? Something else that I surprisingly thought this book did very well was painting a picture of this friendship group, this kind of like larger than life, thick as thieves, friendship group, which is huge for me because as we know, I often feel quite ostracized and rejected by fictional friendship groups. Don't talk about your friends if you're not gonna invite me.

Bridget 37:11

Stop having inside jokes. I wasn't there for that. How did you feel about him? Yeah, I like them. I surprised myself again with how much I like these teenagers. I think the colonel, I was so ready to hate him because of his stupid nickname, but he was logical, it was practical, still having a little bit of whimsy about him. Some of the things he came out with were just pure poetry. Yeah. Love him. Lara, I think, take her or leave her, the story would have been fine without her. Felt a bit too much like perks of being a warflower for me to like have that storyline really hit as hard as it could because I was like, oh, had this before. Um, but I think like she was inoffensive, she was nice. I felt bad for her. Takumi though. I hate to be hating on the only person of colour seemingly in this whole book, but oh my god, the rapping sent me into orbit. I thought it would. So can you do one for us? Um, yeah, okay. But I forgot if I have, I'll give it a go. I forgot about people referring to themselves as an MC. Yeah. That was like a big thing in like 2009. Should I lay it down?

Laura 38:28

We can have like a meteoric rise to fame after. Nah, nah, nah, nah.

Bridget 38:32

Um I'm not gonna wrap it, I'm just gonna read it because that would be so no fun. Embarrassing and insensitive, disrespectful to the entire genre of the room. Yeah, yes, definitely. And I'm not about that. So this is the first time, the first little taste we had of the rapping is rapping to Alaska. Yeah, Pudge is adorable, but you want incorrigible. So Jake is more endurable because he's so damn, damn. I almost had four rhymes on adorable, but all I could think of was unflorable, which isn't even a word.

Laura 39:06

Okay.

Bridget 39:08

Cool, bro. And then the second time was worse, um, because everyone got involved.

Laura 39:13

Laris was pretty funny.

Bridget 39:15

They decided to have a freestyle contest, which I mean, if you didn't know when this book was set, you would know immediately. So Pudge was told he was to start, and he said, Dude, I can't rap. And they said that's okay, just try and rhyme a little and then send it over to me. So then Colonel started to make absurd noises that sounded more like farty based things. And I uh rapped. We're sitting in the barn and the sun's going down. When I was a kid at Burger King, I wore a crown. Dude, I can't rhyme for shit, so I'll let my boy Takumi rip it. So then Takumi takes over. Damn Pudge, I'm not sure I'm quite ready, but like nightmare on Elm Street Freddy, I've always got the goods to rip shit up. Last night I drank wine, it was like hiccup, hiccup. The colonel's beats are sick like malaria. When I rock the mic, the ladies suffer hysteria. I represent Japan as well as Birmingham. When I was a kid, they called me yellow man, but I ain't ashamed of my skin colour, and neither are the countless bitches that call me lover. This one was the worst. Then Alaska joins in. Oh shit, did you just diss the feminine gender? I'll pummel your ass, then stick you in a blender. You think I like Tori and Annie, so I can't rhyme, but I got flow, like Ghostbusters got slime. Objectify women and it's fucking on. You'll be dead and gone like an ancient Babylon. I have to say it doesn't hit quite so hard in the Australian accent. And then Takumi starts again. If my eye offends me, I will pluck it out. I got props for girls like old men got gout. Oh shit. Now my rhyming got all whack. Lara help me out and pick up the slack. I loved the gout line. I lost my mind at this whole section. And then Lara joins in. My name's Lara and I'm from Romania. This is pretty hard. Um, I once visited Albania. I love writing in Alaska's Geo. My two best vowels in English are E-O. I'm not so good with the little eyes, but they make me sound cosmopolitan, right? Oh, Takumi, I think I'm done. End this game with some fun. And then Takumi, again, we're back to him. Unfortunately, I drop bombs like Hiroshima, or better yet, Nagasaki. When girls hear me flow, they think that I'm Rocky. To represent my homeland, I still drink sake. The kids don't get my rhyming, so sometimes they mock me. My build ain't small, but I wouldn't call it stocky. Then again, unlike Pudge, I'm not super gawky. I'm the fucking fox, and this is my crew. Our freestyles infused with funk, like my gym shoes, and we're out.

Laura 42:00

You gotta hand it to him, he knows what he's about. He rapped at least three times for an extended period of time in this book. Like this book, it moves fast. The raps take up quite a chunk.

Bridget 42:11

It took a long time to get through. I will have to say though, I did enjoy The Fox.

Laura 42:16

Yes, I have that highlighted. So funny. Against all odds, I would love to read that out. Yes, please. So this is when they're doing the prank the where they're split into two teams. One is setting off fireworks, one is hacking into the mainframe. Enhance. After five minutes, we split up to our destinations. I stuck with Takumi. We were the distractions. We're the fucking Marines, he said. First to fight, first to die, I agreed nervously. Hell yes. He stopped and opened his bag. Not here, dude, I said. We have to go up to the Eagles. I know, I know. Just hold on. He pulled out a thick headband. It was brown, with a plush fox head on the front. He put it on his head. I laughed. What the hell is that? It's my fox hat. Your fox hat? Yeah, Pudge. My fox hat. Why are you wearing your fox hat? I asked. Because no one can catch the motherfucking fox. And then they're running for it. Miles gets attacked by the swan. They're setting off fireworks. Swan bites him on the ass. Takumi picked thorns out of his leg. The fox is fucking tired, he said and laughed. Swan bit my ass, I told him. I saw he smiled. Is it bleeding? I reached my hand into my pants to check. No blood. So I smoked to celebrate. Mission accomplished, I said, Pudge, my friend. We are in de fucking structable.

Bridget 43:41

I did see in those frequently asked questions that John Green did have a friend that had a fox hat whenever he was doing something a bit naughty.

Laura 43:50

Another scene that I really liked with the friendship group was when they played Best Day, Worst Day. So this was mere seconds after the rapping. Unfortunately. An abrupt vibe there. Yeah. And two days before. So the game is a premise that Alaska sets up. Everybody tells the story of their best day. The best storyteller doesn't have to drink. Then everybody tells the story of their worst day, and the best storyteller doesn't have to drink, and it keeps going and keeps going. I really liked Miles' best day. It was, I think, a bit of me from Tumblr. He said, Best day of my life is today, I said. And the story is that I woke up next to a very pretty Hungarian girl, and it was cold, but not too cold. And I had a cup of lukewarm instant coffee and ate Cheerios without milk, and then walked through the woods with Alaska and Takumi. We skipped stones across the creek, which sounds dumb, but it wasn't. I don't know. Like the way the sun is right now with the long shadows and that kind of bright, soft light you get when the sun isn't quite setting. That's the light that makes everything better, everything prettier. And today everything just seemed to be in that light. I mean, I didn't do anything, but just sitting here, even if I'm watching the colonel whittle or whatever. Whatever. Great day. Today. Best day of my life. And then Lara says, You think I'm pretty? And I'm Romanian. The Colonels was so nice as well. He said, The best day of my life hasn't happened yet, but I know it. I see it every day. The best day of my life is the day I buy my mum a huge fucking house. And not just like out in the woods, but in the middle of Mountain Brook with all the weekday warrior parents, with all y'all's parents. And I'm not buying it with a mortgage either. I'm buying it with cash money. And I'm driving my mum there and I'm gonna open her side of the car door and she'll get out and look at this house. This house is like picket fence and two stories and everything, you know. And I'm gonna hand her the keys to the house and I'll say, Thanks. Man, she helped fill out my application to this place and she let me come here, and that's no easy thing when you come from where we do to let your son go away to school. So that's the best day of my life.

Bridget 45:57

So nice.

Laura 45:58

I'm just so confused by myself because the book moves along so fast, and the dialogue is so simplistic. But I somehow felt there was a connection there, and I just don't know why. Yeah. I did come across one quote that I thought sort of summed up how I felt quite well. It was from Jamie K. Barkdoll and Lisa Scherf from the English Journal. They said, with each page, Green builds more than simply a surface-level coming-of-age novel. He envelops his readers with a vivid collection of magnetic characters, beautiful settings, intriguing facts, and powerful dilemmas that provide readers with an authentic and unique window into the lives of teenagers struggling to make sense of themselves and the world around them. So I guess all of what we've been talking about falls into the before portion of this book. The after portion is where shit really hits the fan, and I think the quality of the show could drastically disintegrate in this part of the discussion. Yeah. I'm anticipating like 80% me just reading out quotes and crying, and maybe like 20% heavy breathing.

Bridget 47:05

Up until this point, up until it happened, I still thought that she was gonna go missing and they were gonna go on a road trip to find her, which I think is paper towns. I think so. And so when he walked into that auditorium and he was like, Where's the last? And I was like, it like hit me like a train. I was like, I suddenly remember what happens. I can't deal with this. And I was like, What?

Laura 47:32

So heartbreaking. So heartbreaking. You took the words right out of my mouth because I was gonna say it hit me like a ton of bricks. And even knowing what happened, the more I read, the more I remembered the show. So I sort of had put the puzzle together.

Bridget 47:46

Yeah.

Laura 47:46

But even when he says, I tapped the colonel on the shoulder and said, Hyde's here, and the colonel said, Oh shit. And I said, What? And he said, Where's Alaska? And I said, No. And he said, Pudge, is she here or not? And then we both stood up and scanned the faces in the gym. The eagle walked up to the podium and said, Is everyone here? No, I said to him, Alaska isn't here. The eagle looked down. Is everyone else here? Alaska isn't here. Okay, Miles, thank you. We can't start without Alaska. The eagle looked at me. He was crying noiselessly.

Bridget 48:17

He's really giving he can't see without his glasses. Another He can't see without his glasses. Oh god. Don't, that's gonna tip me over the air. It's too late for me, I fear. The Eagle, he seems like a really nice teacher. A hard job, uh, head of a boarding school. The first half of the book, I was like, is he Alaska's dad? Is that why he's so lenient with her? But no, that's stupid. Stupid me. Dicks army, huh? But I cannot imagine as a teacher having to deliver that news. No. And also the guilt, like those kids were in his care, and it wasn't his fault that he was tricked out of it. But horrific, because he's gonna live with that for the rest of his life now as well, like along with the rest of them. But the aftermath of this announcement was so perfect. He says, for a moment everyone in the gym was silent and the place had never been so quiet, not even the moments before the colonel ridiculed opponents at the free throw stripe. I stared down at the back of the colonel's head. I just stared looking at his thick and bushy hair. For a moment it was so quiet that you could hear the sound of not breathing, the vacuum created by 190 students shocked out of air. I thought it's all my fault. I thought I don't feel very good. I thought I'm gonna throw up. Oh Horrific scenes. Bridget Laura found dead in a ditch.

Laura 49:42

Oh And then when he goes back into the gym as well, and it said, everyone seemed to be in various stages of disintegration. It was like something you see on TV, like a National Geographic special on funeral rituals. I saw Takumi standing over Lara, his hands on her shoulders. I saw Kevin with his crew cut, his head buried between his knees. A girl named Molly Tan, who'd studied with us for the pre-calc wailed, beating bald fists against her thighs. All these people I sort of knew and sort of didn't, and all of them disintegrating. And then I saw the colonel, his knees tucked into his chest, lying on his side on the bleachers, Madame O'Malley.

Bridget 50:17

Ugh. Say what you want about John Green while you collect yourself, but I can picture all of that. Same perfectly same. He's writing honestly, just aren't that it's now we're now a John Green's stand account, okay? Talk lit, get John Green on the show, please. Come hang out with us. Oh my god, make us cry in person. Yeah, I actually side note, I don't think there's a book I've cried at more than The Fault in Our Stars. It was so unexpected to me because I didn't know anything about it.

Laura 50:53

I remember the the dehydration that followed. Like I have a visceral memory of being like two days straight, I don't think I have enough water in my body. I need help.

Bridget 51:03

I remember going to the movies to see it. Oh knowing full well what happened. And for some reason I went during the day. Like I feel like that is a night movie. You leave in the dark, you go home and cry. But I went at like two o'clock in the afternoon and I had to exit in broad daylight. Anyway, back to this. How does he do it? What does he put in these books? Oh, I don't know. I think another passage that really felt true to me, like true for grief, and you know, when something terrible happens was on page 144, and he's just finished talking to his parents on the phone, and he he said, I just wanted you to pick up. I just needed you to answer the phone, and you did. And he says, All night I felt paralyzed into silence, terrorized. What a great word. Terrorized. What was I so afraid of anyway? The thing had happened. She was dead. She was warm and soft against my skin, my tongue in her mouth, and she was laughing, trying to teach me, make me better, promising to be continued. And now she was colder by the hour, more dead with every breath I took. I thought, that is the fear. I have lost something important and I cannot find it, and I need it. It is fear like if someone lost his glasses, oh my god, glasses again, and went to the glasses store, and they told him that the world had run out of glasses and he would just have to do without. He needs his glasses.

Laura 52:28

Oh god. One bit that really got me. I actually don't think I can get through this. It's when the Colonel and Miles go to retrace Alaska's last route. There's a few bits I want to read out, but it says, Five miles north of school, the colonel moved into the left lane of the interstate and began to accelerate. I gritted my teeth, and then before us, broken glass glittered in the glare of the sun, like the road was wearing jewelry, and that spot must be the spot. He was still accelerating. I thought this would not be a bad way to go. I thought, straight and fast, maybe she just decided at the last second. And poof, we are through the moment of her death. We are driving through the place that she could not drive through, passing onto asphalt she never saw, and we are not dead. We are not dead, we're breathing and we are crying, and now slowing down and moving back into the right lane. We got off at the next exit quietly, and switching drivers we walked in front of the car. We met and I held him, my hands balled into tight fists around his shoulders, and he wrapped his short arms around me and squeezed tight so that I felt the heaves of his chest as we realized over and over again that we are still alive. I realized it in waves and we held onto each other crying, and I thought, God, we must look so lame. But it doesn't matter when you have just now realized all the time later that you are still alive. I was a mess when I read that. Oh, and then I tried to listen to some of the audiobook, and then that bit came on, and I was like, Oh, I will crash my car.

Bridget 53:57

Like, I gotta get out.

Laura 54:00

Another random bit I cried at was when the stripper came.

Bridget 54:05

When he said, This one's for Alaska Young, and then the Prince Song played. I don't know why, but I cried so hard at that. So cinematic.

Laura 54:14

It's so cinematic. And that's another thing that I was shocked at. Like I thought all of these pranks were pretty good. The only thing I really have is more quotes. And there's just a few that I want to mention because they are ones that I reblogged endlessly. Yes. But just didn't know that they were from this book. So one is Thomas Edison's last words were, It's very beautiful over there. I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful. Another one, that didn't happen, of course. Things never happened the way I imagined them. Another was you spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape 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. And then lastly, this one which I think kind of captures the essence of the book. And I think it's in Miles's final assignment where he's answering the question how to get out of the labyrinth. And it says, When adults say teenagers think they are invincible, with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We are born and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us, greater than the sum of all our parts, cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail. It was great. I cried. No notes.

Bridget 55:44

I think like so many of these quotes I have seen, as you said on Tumblr so many times, that I sort of grew accustomed to them, skipped over them. Oh, there's that quote again. Whatever. Probably the most famous one, where he says, If people were rain, I was Drizzle, and she was hurricane. Pure poetry. Pure poetry. But it just became such a cliche that I just sort of forgot about it.

Laura 56:06

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I think I was so used to just being like, ugh, that's that John Green quote that people love again, like that I just couldn't see it for what it was. Yes.

Bridget 56:16

I feel like we need to dry our tears a little bit. Please. Bring the mood back up. I was reading this book and I was reminded about something quite traumatic that happened to me quite recently. Oh no. When I went to England this last time, I wanted to only take a very small suitcase, like a carry-on-sized suitcase. So I took one pair of shoes. I bought these new New Balance shoes that were fantastic. They were like great with a dress, great with a skirt, great with pants, you know, all rounders, very, very comfortable. Probably the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn. Anyway, so I took them and I was like, it's fine. Like I've never needed more than one pair of shoes when I go to England. I'm not going in winter, it's not gonna be snowing. Probably rain a little bit, but I'll be fine. So we go there, and for the first two weeks, we're having a lovely time. And then we're like, okay, we've got to go to Birmingham now for the Black Sabbath concert. So we're like, make our merry way, we go down this the country, get to Birmingham, have a lovely time, and then it comes time to get back to our Airbnb, and there are no Ubers, there are like you know, three million people in an area with uh no forward planning by the people that built the stadium probably a hundred years ago. So we're like, okay, we'll just walk home. It it'll take about an hour to walk home. It's a midnight and we're exhausted, we've been here all day, but let's walk home because I can't stand here any longer. So we walk home, it's a horrific experience. There is just shit everywhere as you expect in a big city like Birmingham. I think it's the second biggest city in England. And at some point between the stadium and our home, I think I walked through a river of piss. Because the next morning I get up to put on the only shoes I brought, 16,000 kilometres from home, and they stink like piss. And so on page 29, where the colonel wakes up and they're late for class and he's gonna put his shoes on and he realizes that they pissed at his shoes. I was like, God, can relate. And unfortunately, I had to wear them until we got out of Birmingham and found a travel center where I could buy some knockoff crocs. How traumatic for you. They're so stinky. Back at Brian's aunt and uncle's house. His aunt washed them. They live on a farm, so she was like, it doesn't matter. The washing machine has seen worse. But it they they still stink. Really? And then I wore them. We were so convinced that they were fine. And then I wore them on the plane. And something about that plane just brought that smell right back out again. They sat in the sun for like three days. We thought that was fine. No, so rest in peace, new balance. Thank you. Um, you know, you were the one for me while while you were unblemished. Sponsor us, please. And Birmingham, I'll I will always remember this. This is my villain origin story.

Laura 59:11

Very triggering because I did mention Birmingham a lot in this book as well. Granted, a different one. Yeah. A little too close to home.

Bridget 59:17

Yeah, and then just that piss, the piss in the shoes. It's a great prank. Don't you don't ever want that to happen to you. It's traumatic. You just can't get away from the smell. How will I ever get out of this labyrinth of piss? This is my great perhaps. Behaps.

Laura 59:39

Okay, Bridget. We are at the end of our reading and discussion journey of Looking for Alaska by John Green. Would you care to let me know your least favourite character?

Bridget 59:49

Oh, I actually haven't thought about this. Maybe I don't know. Maybe the people that chucked Miles in the creek, the river, pond, lake, while uh duct tape. Like they that's attempted murder. I can't think of anyone else. How about you?

Laura 1:00:04

Yeah, I also can't really think of anyone else. They're probably as close as I'm gonna get. Maybe um Chip's girlfriend's parents. Oh yeah. They were kind of rude to him. Yeah. Yeah, I'll go with the creek tossers.

Bridget 1:00:18

But then it's a good name. Even them though, like they showed signs of personal growth. They were like, let's put this past us. Truce after I've pissed in your shoes.

Laura 1:00:28

Now let's hire a stripper. Yeah. So maybe not even them. I don't know. Is this our first villainless story?

Bridget 1:00:36

I think so. It's quite hard. Okay. Um, how about your favourite person? Who is your favourite character in the book?

Laura 1:00:41

I guess my favourite is Alaska, even though I found her a little bit cringy at times. I think it's just so heartbreaking to think about all the things she was holding inside and kind of the lack of care that the people in her life who were meant to be her friends showed her. And there's just so much we don't know about Alaska, but the bits that we had were flawed and complicated and nuanced. And I wish we got to know more, but I loved what we saw. How about you?

Bridget 1:01:10

Yeah, I agree. I think might also chuck the colonel in. Yes. He was my second. Yeah. He I liked him. He was thoughtful. He was funny. He was silly. Didn't know how to iron a shirt for some reason. Figure it out.

Laura 1:01:25

Why was that funny? I don't know. I don't know.

Bridget 1:01:27

But yeah, Alaska and the Colonel. Wow, we're so positive today. I know. Isn't that fantastic? Something's in the air. Spring. Spring has sprung. That's been a nice day. It's been really nice. Wow. Maybe we're we need to start a spring podcast. We just talk about spring all the time.

Laura 1:01:45

Yeah. But we just we travel. We chase spring chasers. God, spring chasers. That would be very whimsical. That would be very manic pixie dream girl of us. And then time for the final question. The ultimate question. The only question that can ever and should ever be asked off looking for Alaska by John Green. Do you rate it? Lit or shit? It is lit. It is so lit.

Bridget 1:02:12

So lit. It's it's a lit. Like there, I'm sure there's a rapper out there that would rap about how lit it is.

Laura 1:02:19

Wicky wiki.

Bridget 1:02:22

It is a bit rich for me to be like, oh, so embarrassment by the rapping when our podcast literally has the word lit in it. It stands for literature. Have your say in what we read next by keeping an eye on the link in our show notes and on our socials. Make sure you subscribe to the show, and if you want to be on the same page as us, follow us at talklit.gethit on Instagram and TikTok.