Looking for Alaska by John Green
Miles is off to boarding school in search of his “Great Perhaps.” Once there he meets Alaska Young – beautiful, smart, fun-loving and moody – and of course falls for her. Then something really bad happens and Miles must find a way to deal with it.
The book is divided into Before and After so you kind of know right from the beginning that something bad is going to happen. I think I’ll start with what I didn’t like about this book so I can finish off on a positive note. I have just recently read Paper Towns by the same author and while I did like Looking for Alaska better, I felt like the characters, especially the female leads, were very similar – too similar. I also have another of Green’s books sitting in my tbr pile and it makes me wonder if the characters in it will also be the same. I loved the characters in Paper Towns but finding them so similar in this book worries me that Green can only write one type of character. (We’ll see how the third book works out.)
Okay, now for the good. John Green can really write. I love the flow in his stories. I love the way he develops his characters and I love the wit he includes in his books. I found myself laughing out loud at the thoughts and words of his characters. I also loved the characters. I found Alaska to be a bit annoying sometimes but she was real. The story was also real. That’s why I liked this one better than Paper Towns. It was much more realistic. (I, myself, have never gone to boarding school so maybe it actually isn’t all that realistic, but it felt honest to me.)
All in all, it was a good book, definitely worthwhile reading. (As if you need me to tell you that, see that gold sticker on the cover? It won the Printz award.)
Tags: John Green
July 12th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
I can sort of see what you mean about his characters all being sort of same same…they all sort of have that very smart wit to them, but I love it :p I haven’t read An Abundance of Katherine’s yet either, but I have read his short story in Let it Snow and the characters are very similar there too. I just love his writing though! Glad you enjoyed this one overall!
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July 13th, 2010 at 6:48 am
I currently have this one laying around on my bookshelves somewhere. Yet another book that should move towards the top of my list!
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July 16th, 2010 at 12:40 am
I just read this one this year, too. It was my first John Green so I can’t comment on the characters being similar from book to book, although I did like the characters in the book. I have Abundance of Katherines on the shelf, though, and now I am interested to see how similar the characters in it are.
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October 14th, 2010 at 9:50 am
This book sucked me in and now im reluctant to keep reading simply because Alaska had to die!!