Looking For Alaska Review

An Alexa Catherine Review On:

Looking for Alaska By- John Green

Important Characters: Miles (AKA Pudge)- the main character who attends Culver Creek boarding school in search of his “Great Perhaps” and is skilled at memorizing people’s last words

Chip (AKA The Colonel)- Pudge’s roommate and close friend who shows Pudge what it’s like to have true friends and the ways of teenagers (drinking, smoking, and of course pranks)

Alaska- love interest of Pudge and close friends with Pudge and The Colonel; she is very mysterious and often described as moody

Plot Overview: Miles leaves his high school ,of practically no friends, to attend Culver Creek  in search of something beyond his drab life. At his new school Miles gets a nickname, loyal friends, learns what most teens do for fun, and falls head over heals for Alaska. A twisted turn of events leaves Miles and his friends wondering if they really are as unstoppable as they think, and they find themselves asking if they should have done things differently.

My Review: At first I didn’t really like the books. I found it a little slow and just a lot of teenagers running around doing whatever they wanted. Everybody raved and raved about it, so I kept on reading. About halfway through and a bit before the part labeled “after” it got really good. This is when things started to fall into place and I saw the deep sides of the characters. “After” was my favorite half of the book  because Miles begins to learn a lot about life, suffering, and begins to understand the book long theme of “How do we get out of this labyrinth of suffering?” The ending had to be by far my FAVORITE thing in the whole book not only because of the prank Miles and his friends pull off but because of why they did it. Not to mention ending the novel with Miles’ essay which gave a lot of insight as to how teens view the world and as to how much Miles had learned that year. All in all I’d give it a four out of five maybe a three and a half just because the first half really didn’t do it for me, but the book ended up being about more than just teens having a good time and it gave the reader some tricky subjects to think about.

Side Note: I would not recommend this for a younger audience as it has some topics and content unsuitable for children/ young teens.