History YMMV / LookingForAlaska

** Anyone you know could [[spoiler: die in a senseless accident]] and you will never know if you could've prevented it.

* RecycledPremise: Here's the story of a loner of a boy who had an awkward friendship with a hyperactive girl with a quirky imagination, who happens to live next door to him and taught him to socialize and interact with others. Unfortunately, shortly after changing his life for the better, [[spoiler: the girl dies a sudden and untimely death, leaving the boy to cope with the aftermath of her demise, before finally accepting that she's gone for real]]. [[Literature/BridgeToTerabithia Sounds familiar?]]
* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Literature/TheVirginSuicides'' a decade earlier. Both deconstruct the ManicPixieDreamGirl trope, talk at great lengths about the dangers of men putting women on pedestals, and have a major plot arc about characters searching for answers following a tragedy [[spoiler: and finding none]]. Green commented on his blog that ''Virgin Suicides'' was one of his favorite books as a teenager and though he didn't intentionally draw from it he wouldn't be surprised if he was subconsciously influenced.

* TearJerker: [[spoiler: Alaska's death, full stop.]]

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Miya Folick's cover of [[{{Music/DeathCabForCutie}} I Will Follow You Into the Dark]] got a lot of attention when it featured in the scene where [[spoiler:Alaska makes out with Miles]].

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Believe it or not, Jake, who goes from a [[RomanticFalseLead bland romantic obstacle]] in the book to an unexpectedly endearing and nuanced character thanks to an adaptation-exclusive subplot in Episode 3. Many fans found themselves agreeing with Alaska's assertion that he's too good for her, and happy that [[spoiler: the show provides him with an implied SecondLove in the form of [[CanonForeigner Fiona]].]]

* TearJerker: The lingering look that Miles and Alaska share as he holds the campus gate open for her to drive away into the night. [[spoiler:It's the last time the two of them ever see each other]]. It also gives him a more direct role in enabling [[spoiler:her death]] than the book.

* BrokenBase: The matter of the series confirming that Alaska does indeed return Miles' feelings. While supporters of the pairing obviously enjoyed this, and others simply felt it was confirming something that was already heavily implied in the book, still others criticized it due to getting rid of one of the story's big mysteries [[spoiler:and one of the unknowns Miles grapples with after her death]].

* MoralEventHorizon: Longwell and Kevin in Episode 5 when they destroy Alaska's beloved book collection as payback for turning in Marya and Paul. Even the other Culver Creek students, to whom "Don't rat" is the first and only commandment, [[DisproportionateRetribution think that's too much]], and the ''tour de force'' of a prank that her friends pull in response reconciles them after they had fractured in the previous episode.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: As mentioned under DoNotDoThisCoolThing above, John Green was disappointed in himself for failing to get across the fact that his ''depiction'' of the main characters' antics did not constitute an ''endorsement'' to many readers. The series adds a number of scenes that make it clear that their behavior is ''not'' something to emulate, particularly two blistering [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech "The Reason You Suck" Speeches]] in Episode 6: the first from Lara to Miles [[spoiler:when she breaks up with him over [[HonorBeforeReason how seriously he's taking the school's ridiculous code of silence even though it won't even be relevant to his life in just a year and a half]]]], and the second from Starnes to The Colonel [[spoiler:where he informs Chip that by letting his vengeance on the Weekday Warriors escalate to outright crimes, he not only [[AllForNothing failed to hurt them in any meaningful way]], but also [[HoistByHisOwnPetard gave their racist parents all the justification they needed to have HIM kicked out of the school]]]].

* DoNotDoThisCoolThing: Both supporters and detractors of the book commonly see Green as glamorizing or even outright endorsing Miles and his friends' reckless lifestyle, including copious underage drinking and smoking, playing highly destructive practical jokes, and a code of silence on the above matters that would make the Mafia proud. This is despite the fact that a chain of DisasterDominoes involving all of the above literally kills one of them. Green himself was disappointed that many readers [[MisaimedFandom got the exact opposite message than he was intending]], and his third novel ''Literature/PaperTowns'', in many ways a LighterAndSofter take on ''Alaska'', makes the themes a lot more explicit.

* FandomSpecificPlot: There are a number of fics that reveal Alaska faked her death, often as her most ambitious prank yet, as Miles initially speculated. She is Just That Good, after all. Another common type is Alaska's death from her perspective, including her mysterious last words. The latter type in turn comes in two varieties: either she's thinking of Miles, or it's something [[GallowsHumor amusingly anticlimactic]], e.g. "[[PrecisionFStrike Shit]]".
* {{Fanon}}: Green intended for the circumstances of Alaska's death to be, well, a mystery; with various details pointing to either possibility (that it was a suicide, or that it was an accident). However, you will find that fans tend to incline more towards the notion of Alaska's death being in some form suicidal. This is because of her well-established mental illness and sadness; people have no difficulty believing that her internal pain that night would've been enough to trigger suicidal tendencies.
* FollowTheLeader: Creator/JohnGreen's subsequent works tend to have more than a passing resemblance to the characters and plot already featured in ''[=LfA=]'', particularly ''Literature/PaperTowns'' (though that book is an intentional {{Deconstruction}} of ''[=LfA=]'')

* AuthorsSavingThrow: As mentioned under DoNotDoThisCoolThing above, John Green was disappointed in himself for failing to get across the fact that his ''depiction'' of the main characters' antics did not constitute an ''endorsement'' to many readers. The series adds a number of scenes that make it clear that their behavior is ''not'' something to emulate, particularly two blistering {{Reason You Suck Speech}}es in Episode 6: the first from Lara to Miles [[spoiler:when she breaks up with him over [[HonorBeforeReason how seriously he's taking the school's ridiculous code of silence even though it won't even be relevant to his life in just a year and a half]]]], and the second from Starnes to The Colonel [[spoiler:where he informs Chip that by letting his vengeance on the Weekday Warriors escalate to outright crimes, he not only [[AllForNothing failed to hurt them in any meaningful way]], but also [[HoistByHisOwnPetard gave their racist parents all the justification they needed to have HIM kicked out of the school]]]].

* {{Tearjerker}}: [[spoiler: Alaska's death, full stop.]]

* WhatAnIdiot: The EscalatingPrankWar could have stopped at any time; Dean Starnes is strict but a ReasonableAuthorityFigure, as shown by his giving Miles a few demerits for smoking rather than expelling or suspending the kid. If anything, the logical thing the Colonel could do is tell the Dean about the Weekday Warriors nearly drowning Miles, because Miles didn't get Myra expelled. While no one wants to be the snitch, as it was snitching in the first place that started the prank war, it might have stopped before things came to a head with the orange shampoo. It makes sense to a degree in the cases of Alaska and The Colonel, whose families can't afford tuition and thus, for them, losing their scholarships as punishment for their pranks would be equivalent to expulsion, and the two of them drill it into Miles' head at every opportunity, but that doesn't explain why ''every'' Culver Creek student lives and breathes by this bizarre code.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: As mentioned under DoNotDoThisCoolThing above, John Green was disappointed in himself for failing to get across the fact that his ''depiction'' of the main characters' antics did not constitute an ''endorsement'' to many readers. The series adds a number of scenes that make it clear that their behavior is ''not'' something to emulate, particularly two blistering {{Reason You Suck Speech}}es in Episode 6: the first from Lara to Miles [[spoiler:when she breaks up with him over [[HonorBeforeReason how seriously he's taking the school's ridiculous code of silence even though it won't even be relevant to his life in just a year and a half]]]], and the second from Starnes to The Colonel [[spoiler:where he informs Chip that by letting his vengeance on the Weekday Warriors escalate to outright crimes, he not only [[AllForNothing failed to hurt them in any meaningful way]], but also [[HoistByHisOwnPetard gave their racist parents all the justification they needed to have HIM kicked out of the school]].]]

* DoNotDoThisCoolThing: Both supporters and detractors of the book commonly see Green as glamorizing or even outright endorsing Miles and his friends' reckless lifestyle, including copious underage drinking and drug use, playing highly destructive practical jokes, and a code of silence on the above matters that would make the Mafia proud. This is despite the fact that a chain of DisasterDominoes involving all of the above literally kills one of them. Green himself was disappointed that many readers [[MisaimedFandom got the exact opposite message than he was intending]], and his third novel ''Literature/PaperTowns'', in many ways a LighterAndSofter take on ''Alaska'', makes the themes a lot more explicit.

* FanPreferredCouple: You'll find quite a few fans of Takumi/Lara, thanks to a number of subtle bonding moments they share and, of course, the fact that [[ShipMates they go well with Miles/Alaska]].