Title: Looking for Alaska
Author: John Green
Publication Date: December 28th 2006
Publisher: Speak
Format: Paperback
Pages: 231
Rating: 5/5
Blurb: 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.
Blurb: 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.
Review: This is one of those books that
you expect to go one way and end up screwing with your mind and going in a
complete other direction, but somehow despite the tears you shed and the amount
of times you wanted to angrily tell each of the characters to get their shit
together, you still end up loving this book more than you probably should. That
was Looking for Alaska in a nutshell for me.
I loved
Pudge- I don’t usually enjoy reading from male perspectives but by some
absolute miracle (also known as John Green’s writing), I actually really,
really enjoyed reading through Pudge’s perspective. I especially liked his
little obsession with famous last words and there are some that I learnt
through this novel that I may never forget. I loved Alaska as well, though
there were times when I wanted to hate her for one thing or another, I just
couldn’t.
Plot-wise,
I had no idea what to expect going into this. I knew it was a boarding school
and that there was romance but that was all. I didn’t except it to have some
many hilarious moments tied in with the heartbreak and everything else. I sort
of wish that my school was more like Culver Creek, then there are times I’m
glad that it really isn’t.
Another
thing I really enjoyed was the separation of ‘before’ and ‘after’, I really
liked how you could see the changes in all of the characters in the ‘after’
section compared to the ‘before’. I think this added to how I felt for the
characters and how I connected to them.
I just
wish I could put into words exactly how I felt after finishing this novel, but
I don’t there is any way that I could possibly sum it up. Though, I’m not sure
I’ll ever be the same after this novel.
You can buy Looking for Alaska on
The Book Depository (Free shipping worldwide): here
