Looking For Alaska
As a YA fan I feel a bit ashamed that I have never read any John Green before. As I have 3 copies of Looking For Alaska kicking around my humble abode, I thought it might be prudent to read this Printz award winner, so I can have some street cred as a YA fan.
The plot of Looking for Alaska by John Green centers around Miles “Pudge”. He ends up going to boarding school in Alabama and making an interesting group of new friends. There’s lust, alcohol, swears, and pranks. Miles is kind of a dork, but my kind of dork.
I thought Miles was interesting with the whole last words obsession. One of my favorite lines from this book wasn’t actually penned by John Green, but spoken by Rabelais “I go to seek a great perhaps.” It was interesting to see Miles go from being kind of a boring unconfident guy, to really blossoming. I do enjoy dynamic characters quite a bit.
The supporting characters of Looking For Alaska by John Green rocked too! There was the Colonel, who was personally my favorite character. Watch for the scene of him at the basketball game, it’s hilarious. There was also Alaska, whom was kind of a bitch, but at the same time we get to learn why she’s so…odd in the end. Personally, I liked reading about Alaska, but she’s definitely not the kind of girl I’d be friends with in real life. Interesting how we come across all sorts of people in fiction whom we’d probably not go out of our way to meet IRL.
The writing definitely flows and I certainly liked the layout where the first half the sections/chapters are labelled with the amount of days before a certain event, and then the pages after are labelled with day after the event. I know with the writing, I certainly laughed aloud because I could relate, especially to a scene where some characters, ah, fumble and it’s really just awkward. As an awkward person, I can appreciate when other people are awkward. Also, there are parts of Looking For Alaska which did make me feel tight-chested because yeah, it’s sad.
While reading Looking For Alaska, you ought to drink some strawberry snapple. It’s non-alcoholic and yummy and well, a not-so-close alternative to the strawberry wine mentioned within Looking For Alaska.
Disclosure: I bought all three copies of this book that I own. Two were bought at a Penguin warehouse sale for a contest. The other was ordered off betterworldbooks.com where part of the proceeds went towards literacy-based charities.
Other reviews of Looking For Alaska by John Green:
My Tea Time Is Book Time
GreenBeanTeenQueen
Michelle’s Masterful Musings
This post was written by...
April (Books&Wine) – who has written 1064 posts on Good Books And Good Wine.
April is 24 years old. She is an educator. In her free time she can be found reading, working out, or eating junk food. She often wears her sunglasses at night.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Sounds AWESOME! I've been meaning to read this book for a while, and now I'm wishing I had my copy here with me!
Great review. I love the name Alaska.
So glad to see you liked this book. I, myself, have never read a John Green book and out of my approx 370 books, don't own one either which is why I chose this book when I won your contest. I feel embaressed that I haven't read his work. Plus this book sounds really good. Thanks for the review.
~Briana
I've only recently came across this book and never know that that it is that interesting! Will surely read my own copy very soon =)
Looking for Alaska is one of my favorite novels, although I do prefer his Paper Towns. John Green is an absolute genius. I'd recommend him to EVERYONE. Great review.
So glad you enjoyed it! Anything by John Green went on my TBR list after this, as I've only read good things about the rest of his novels too.
I haven't read anything by John Green either…but this year I'm going to change that!
And yes, it was nice not to see Cass and Tim become a couple. I liked them just as they were.
The only John Green I've read is a short story in Geektastic. It wasn't my favorite in the collection, but it was okay. I need to read one of his novels sometime.
This sounds like a really good one.
{ 2 trackbacks }