Search - Looking For Alaska

Everyone has it: that one event in their life where the years surrounding it can clearly be defined as "Before" and "After". Welcome to the recount of Miles' Before and After.

Looking for Alaska is a wonderful first novel from John Green. It has been called a "modern day Catcher in the Rye", but it is so much more. It's more likable, more applicable (if that's even possible), and just as poignant of a read. In this novel, join Miles as he leaves his Florida home and regular high school for an Alabama boarding school in search of his "Great Perhaps". At his boarding school, he is immediately surrounded by a diverse group of kids--friends-- who experience life at its best and worst: loves, losses, pranks fit for the history books. It's a book that will have you laughing on one page, and crying ten pages later.

As far as coming of age novels go, this one should not be missed.

Reviewed by Me for TeensReadToo.com

Miles Halter is the type of high-schooler who always faded into the background at his public school in Florida. He had few friends, by choice as much as by fate, and wanted only to study his passion--memorizing the last words of people who had died. After reading the dying words of poet Francois Rabelais, "I go to seek a Great Perhaps", Miles is convinced that there's more to life than what he's so far experienced.

So Miles sets off to spend his junior and senior years at Culver Creek, a private boarding school in Alabama. There he gains his first nickname "Pudge" (a misnomer, by far, since Miles is quite skinny); meets his first love, Alaska Young; has his first sexual encounter with a Romanian girl named Lara; and gains two great male friends, Chip "The Colonel" Martin and Takumi Hikohito. He also experiences the joys and sickness of getting drunk, the strangeness of smoking cigarettes, and the unadulterated pleasure of playing pranks.

Pudge's new group of friends have their own quirks--The Colonel memorizes countries, capitals, and populations; Alaska collects books for her Life's Library that she hasn't yet read; Takumi relishes being The Fox. They all work together to irritate their teachers, avoid confrontation with The Eagle, the school's dean, and pull off pranks against the rich Weekday Warriors that are the popular clique at Culver Creek.

But LOOKING FOR ALASKA is mostly the story of growing up, of falling in love, of dealing with loss, and getting through life as best that you can. With wonderful dialogue, fascinating prose, and characters that are so real you'll think you know them personally, this is a book well worth reading. Not just is it the story of a group of teenagers looking to find their way out of the labryinth of loss, or just the story of finding our Great Perhaps, LOOKING FOR ALASKA is about living the best life that can be led.

I loved this story, and highly recommend it. Once you do, you'll realize it's no surprise that it won the Teen's Top 10 Awards--in fact, it probably deserves more.

I bought it at a bookstore from the feature authors table not knowing it was intended for teens. This book is so well written; it is better than most books written for adults than I have read. I was impress with the depth of John Green's character and the honesty of adolescent life.

I will admit that I only picked up this book because it was small and not too many pages. I have heard John Green praised sung upon high and I thought, yeah right. I read the synopsis and it did not impress me. How can this story be interesting? I am about to eat my words.

This book is wonderful and magical. We all know a Pudge or maybe some of us were Pudge in high school. Pudge comes to bording school with no friends just looking for something, anything. He quickly makes friends with his roommate, the Colonel, who introduces him to the brillant and destructive Alaska Young.

Pudge is obsessed with peoples last words that sometimes he forgets what is going on around him. This book is sometimes awkard and somethimes painful to read. The angst of teenage sexuality and how to handle the loss of people you love.

I only wish that I read this book a little slower the first time. I was in such a hurry to see what happened. This is a skinny book but in no way a light read. Slow down and savor the journey that John Green takes you on. I will now have to get all of his books since he has lived up to his hype.