Review: Looking for Alaska by John Green

Looking for Alaska by John Green
Paperback, 221 pages
Published December 28th 2006 by Speak (first published January 1st 2005)
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Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter's whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the "Great Perhaps" (François Rabelais, poet) even more. Then he heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.

After. Nothing is ever the same.

 

I had no prior knowledge of this book so I didn’t really have any expectations going into it. This was my first John Green book and I loved it!

You start out with the prologue. Alaska, Miles aka Pudge, the Coronel, Lara and Takumi are all hanging out, talking about a great prank that is about to go down. Then you go the “before”. There is a count down from the before to the important moment (which we won’t talk about because it is a spoiler). Then you get to the “after”. From there you count up until the end. Quite a bit of stuff happens in those times.

I like it when books are counting days, especially when the days are random, sometimes they go one day at a time and sometimes they skip a few days. The lengths of the “chapters,” which aren’t really chapters, vary quite a bit; some days are only a couple pages long which makes the book move very quickly. I kept finding myself continuing on because the next day ended a couple pages later so I would think “I might as well read this part too”.

Pudge is obviously our main character. His life is extremely boring and uneventful when we first meet him. He has no friends and really wants to get out and find the “great perhaps”. (This is explained in the book). Without spoiling too much I have to say there is a certain blow job/toothpaste scene which is pretty funny!

Alaska was a crazy young lady that is for sure. She seemed like the perfect character for the book though. She was very into women’s rights and being treated equally. She would randomly freak out and nobody really, really understood her.  She had a boyfriend named Jake that she loved. (If you read the book you’ll see why I said that.)

The Coronel was pretty funny. He was Pudge’s first friend at his new school. He seemed like the hard headed, I’m in charge, type of person. He hated rich people and he loved his mother.

I didn’t like any character more than another. They were all really great characters and they played their role just I thought it should be carried out.

I definitely recommend picking up this book if you haven’t read it yet. I can’t wait to read more books by John Green!

My Rating: