Looking for Alaska by John Green

Title: Looking for Alaska
Author: John Green
Pages: 221

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. 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. 


Speechless because wow.

My Rating:
✰✰✰✰✰

I actually didn't know anything about this book before reading it which made it more exciting.

This book was just spectacular. The story, the characters, the writing; everything was amazing. Reading this book made me want to go do something. I want to seek my own Great Perhaps. This writing style, I thought, was pretty different to the way John wrote in The Fault in Our Stars, but I actually think that was a good thing. In a lot of ways, I think Looking for Alaska was better.

Miles was a great protagonist. I thought he was very smart and nice and I loved how he had a thing for knowing peoples' last words which was very cool. His character development was great and even throughout a pretty short book, he changed from being a pretty lonely boy to someone who had this amazing fun group of friends. I loved seeing all of the friends hang out, get drunk, and do whatever they wanted. The pranks were very fun to read about.

Without a doubt, Alaska Young was my favorite character. She might be my all time favorite character now too. I just loved her character along with Miles and Chip (Pudge and the Colonel), who were also great. Alaska just had these traits that I love reading about. She was outgoing and spoke up for what she believed in. I loved what the story circled which is friendship and overcoming hardships.

Although this book was fairly short, it did not feel rushed and I felt like I really knew the characters. I loved every single one of them, and I loved every second of this book. I also really liked how it was written with Before and After. 

This whole book felt so quotable and was very thought provoking. This book was so fun yet very intense.

Sometimes a book is so good, it's hard to explain why. This book was one of those. These characters were so great and the story was amazing. Just *sigh* spectacular. Looking for Alaska is very high on my favorites.


My overall thought: A pure coming of age story about self revelation.