Looking for Mr. Goodbar to these events, which the book details, Theresa is a child suffering from ugly duckling syndrome, followed by an ordeal as an adult in college in which she is engaged in a committed relationship with a married man who is using her as a companion. The relationship ends, and Theresa experiences a bevy of sexual encounters that are fleeting and pathological. By 1973, having published three novels, Judith Rossner was a writer of "impeccable literary credentials." Invited by Nora Ephron to contribute to a special women's issue of "Esquire" magazine, Rossner wrote an article about a real-life murder that had
Looking for Alaska on the Honors and Advanced Placement classes' required reading lists for Knox County high schools on the grounds that its sex scene and its use of profanity rendered it pornography. Ultimately, students were kept from reading the novel as a whole, but "Looking For Alaska" was still available in libraries within the district. In May 2012, Sumner County in Tennessee also banned the teaching of "Looking For Alaska". The school's spokesman argued that two pages of the novel included enough explicit content to ban the novel. Further controversy came from the cover art. In August 2012, Green acknowledged that the