Looking for Alaska by John Green

Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter is done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave "the Great Perhaps" even more (Francois Rabelais, poet). He heads off to the sometimes crazy 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. She is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart. Then . . . After. Nothing is ever the same.


Released: December 28th, 2006
Published by: Puffin
Series: -
Page Amount: 221

Plot 10/10
Likable Characters 10/10
Problem Development 10/10
Solution Effectiveness 10/10
Writing Style 10/10
Character Development 10/10
Cover 10/10
Setting 10/10
Ending 10/10
Beginning 9/10
=
99%

This book was beautiful. This is a book you want to read after you have been reading a long marathon of fantasy or books about worlds that don’t exist because it really gets you thinking about your life and how things could go terribly wrong at any possible moment. It is a book that you read when you are braze enough to cry your eyes out and let yourself go into the main characters heart and totally forget what is happening in your own life and all you can think about for days after was this poor character.

The plot for this novel is unlike any novel I have read before. The whole moving away from home to go to a boarding school thing, I think anyways, is a little bit over used, but John Green pulls a whole new twist on to that whole concept.

Miles (or as his group of friends called him, Pudge) was a very likeable character for me. He is a lot like me in many ways, only has a close nit group of friends, prefers to think things out himself, and overall I really likes Pudge, he was a character with a personality that I would like to see more often in realistic fiction novels, because he is the type of character that you see in fantasy-type novels.

I loved how Green organized the novel, and the problem development, from “before” and “after.” I won’t get into too much detail about that, because that is spoiler mania. But what I can tell you is that the problem in this novel is more towards the end of the book, because with the problem that Miles is given, there is not much he can do about it other than what he does in the novel.

The solution of this novel was quite obvious, but I liked how Miles would handle it just like I would.

John Green’s writing style is one of the best writing styles I have seen in a long time. His use of detail is amazing, but it sounds like a real teenage boy instead of a man that has gone through major grammar and speech classes.

Mile’s character development in this novel was amazing. He grew up like I have never seen before, and he was more mature by the experience that we went through during this novel.

I knew that I wanted to read this book, but the whole reason that I bought it when I did was solely on the cover. There was one copy (the copy I own) of the cover I liked in my local Chapters. But then, there were other covers, of a girls face, and now I am guessing it was Alaska’s. I HATED the other cover, so I snatched up the copy of this book, and I am so glad I did. But, back on the cover. I LOVE this cover. I love how just simple it is, and it just has the smoking candle with the smoke rising off of the purple candle. I love how it is just so simple, but then there is a shiny gold award on it, and that just pulls the cover all together for me.

I loved how the setting was described in this book. I liked how Pudge would compare Alabama, the state that he moves to where he also attends the boarding school, to his hometown, which is Florida.

The ending of this book was tear-jerking, I will warn you right now. But I found the ending just beautiful.

There was something about the beginning of this book that I didn’t like, making me not able to fully give it a ten, but I really wish I could.

There is a review on the back of this book with a quote that I find totally true. “Girls will cry and boys will find love, lust, loss, and longing in Alaska’s vanilla-and-cigarettes scent.” With that, go read this book!