Looking for Alaska by John Green
pages: 221
released: January 2005
publisher: Dutton
cover love: ♥♥♥

Miles “Pudge” Halter is abandoning his safe-okay, boring-life. Fascinated by the last words of famous people, Pudge leaves for boarding school to seek what a dying Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps.” Pudge becomes encircled by friends whose lives are everything but safe and boring. Their nucleus is razor-sharp, sexy, and self-destructive Alaska, who has perfected the arts of pranking and evading school rules. Pudge falls impossibly in love. When tragedy strikes the close-knit group, it is only in coming face-to-face with death that Pudge discovers the value of living and loving unconditionally. (Goodreads)

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON 7/20/2012 ON BOOKSLIKESTARS.NET

Review:

Would you believe me if I said I never heard of John Green before I started blogging? Well, it’s true. Even after the fact, I still passed his books by at the library and at the store, making mental notes to read one, at some point, later on. Which, of course, was completely absurd of me. No, no, no. One does not put off greatness of these measures. I suggest none of you follow my example and when you come across a John Green book, devour  it immediately. Especially if you love contemporary YA (really knock-you-over-with-a-stick contemporary YA). Looking for Alaska is a rounded, hefty, thought-provoking piece of brilliance.

Miles, nicknamed “Pudge” (because he’s so not), makes a decision to move to Alabama to attend the same boarding school as his father, in search of the “Great Perhaps”. His life in Florida is mundane and he hungers for the opportunity to make memories with friends and have the same experiences his father always anecdotes to him. Although his situation at Culver Creek isn’t ideal, he does acquire the friendships he needs to make his stay there more exciting: Chip “The Colonial” is his roommate and his best friend, who guides Pudge with his eccentric and deathly honest knowledge on life. Alaska is the hot girl Pudge crushes hard on, who’s mood swings drive him crazy but so does her body and her flirting skills. And Takumi is the cool Asian kid who’s just chill to be around. With all the smoking, drinking, the laughs and the pranks, Pudge’s venture into the “Great Perhaps” seems to be a success. Until he wakes up one morning to learn about Alaska’s death. Now he’s left searching for solutions to the riddles Alaska left behind: Why she left? Was it suicide? Was it an accident? Who’s to blame? And how will we ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering?

Looking for Alaska is cut into two parts. Before Alaska dies and after. So the whole time you’re reading the Before, you know she’s not going to live to see the second part of the book. However, it still hit me like a ton of bricks when she was gone. The chapters mark off the days left before she dies and the closer I got to “one day before” the more I really didn’t want it to happen. By then, I’d grown to love their foursome and couldn’t see them getting ripped apart. I loved all the characters but if I had to pick one favorite it would be The Colonial. I loved his southern humor. But I also loved how much Pudge had transformed by the end of the book. He’d really grown up and became more insightful about the choices and problems life can throw at us.

This book is weighed down with very heavy issues like death, religion, guilt and consequences. And the whole time I was reading I couldn’t help feeling like John Green was a teacher and I was learning philosophies on life and suffering. In the back of the book there is an awesome Q&A, where the author talks about Looking for Alaska being semi-autobiographical and the invincibility of teenagers. I do remember feeling very invincible when I was a teen and in my early 20s but now as an adult, it’s been replaced with the utter fear that I could die any second. Oh, how times have changed…

Looking for Alaska is not a book you should just pass over. It has fun, memorable characters and John Green is an exceptional writer. I quoted so many passages in my book, I had to stop and just tell myself I to re-read it. It’s that good.

5