After previously reading John
Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (and
loving it) I knew that I enjoyed his straight-forward writing style as well as
admired him for daring to tackle deep subjects that other authors would stray
away from when writing for teens. But, I will admit, I was slightly reluctant
to begin reading Looking for Alaska
as there was so much hype about it and I was worried I might be disappointed.
Well, I wasn’t. Green has done it again.
The main character, Miles "Pudge" Halter,
is just a regular teen who is looking for the “Great Perhaps”, aka some
exciting experiences that will give his life meaning and hope. The story
begins and he basically hates his current teenage life. He doesn’t have very
many friends and he doesn’t have any crazy stories to tell. So he begs and
convinces his parents to send him to Culver Creek Boarding school, where if
he’s lucky, he can discover his “Great Perhaps”.
He quickly meets his roommate,
named The Colonel, who is lovingly obnoxious and introduces him to the world of
booze, cigarettes, and a girl named Alaska. Alaska Young is mesmerizing and
addicting; basically the girl of Miles’ dreams. The friends study, play pranks,
blow off steam, and get into mischief, all while Miles falls in love with Alaska (who loves her boyfriend). Together, along with some other great
characters, their journey begins and Green takes us on an exhilarating ride in
which you will relive being a teenager and Miles finally gets a taste of the
life he has hoped for all along.
As a reader, I was aware the characters
were on their way to something life-changing, as the chapters countdown the
days, “Fifty-six days before”, “Ten days before”, until arriving at “The Last
Day”. They then begin to count up, “The Day After”, “Twelve days after”. I
loved the Before/After part of the book, as it was a unique tool that created plenty
of intrigue and suspense to see what was going to happen.
This book totally caught me by
surprise. I figured it was going to be another coming-of-age tale about
characters falling in love and growing in themselves and the world around them.
What I found, however, was a very mature novel that explored plenty of
different themes and questions, some funny and humorous while others extremely
serious and deep.
I don’t want to give any more hints
about what happened in this book, and I recommend that if you haven’t yet,
don’t read a bunch of other reviews about it as you don’t want any of the
surprise to be ruined. Just read the book. You will enjoy it.
-Busy Brunette
