Looking for Alaska [Paperback]

 

 

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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 labyrinth 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 Award and the Michael J. Printz Award--in fact, it probably deserves more.

Reviewed by: Jennifer Wardrip, aka "The Genius"

I purchased "Looking for Alaska" on the recommendation of the staff of my local bookstore, after an exhausting search for a quality book for my teen son. My son enjoyed it immensely, barely putting it down. My daughter devoured it next and I was stealing it from her when she was doing other things. Yes! The book is that good!

John Green has written a stunningly insightful novel whose characters are real, and situations are familiar to many teens, as is evidenced by the fan mail to his website.

I could rave on and on about what a good book this is, but I won't. The book won the Michael L. Printz Award, and has been nominated for other awards.

Just order it. For a guy or a girl, or yourself order it!

Looking for Alaska was an amazing book. I really didn't know what to expect when I started it ' or when I picked it up. I needed a book with a place name in the title for one of my challenges and John Green's book had good reviews, so I went from there.

The book is about Miles who's life hasn't been anything spectacular. He doesn't have any friends, he's never had a girlfriend, and he's really never experienced anything in life. His favourite thing is reading biographies to find out what a person's last words were and in his reading he finds Francois Rabelais's last words: 'I go to seek a Great Perhaps.'

For that reason, he decides to leave home to a Preparatory school called Culver Creek. His father also attended the school, knowing that it was famous for always pulling pranks throughout the year. Miles' parents throw him a goodbye party ' which only 2 people attend, not showing any interest at all (something Miles figured would happen ' no surprise to him) ' and then Miles is off.

While at Culver Creek, his world is changed. He immediately becomes friends with Chip 'The Colonel' Martin, who gives Miles the nickname Pudge (an ironic name since Miles sounds to be built like a stick). From there, he meets the beautiful Alaska Young and falls in love with her.

Finally having a life, having friends, even getting a girlfriend, Miles' world seems greater than it ever has. And then something happens that changes it forever.

'

I would not have pegged this to be YA fiction because as I was reading it the characters just seemed so much older than high school kids, but YA or not, this book was amazing. Green has a knack for building something up and this is masterfully done via the layout of the book.

We start with 'Before' and each part in this section is titled by how many days Before. As the reader, I knew something was up but I couldn't pinpoint what it would be until the last few pages of Before.

Next comes 'After', where the mood changes, but not too much. There isn't an anticipation for anything since we're in After, but as the reader I was intrigued the whole way through.

Dealing with sadness, guilt, forgiveness, anger ' all with humour sprinkled throughout ' Green crafts a book that makes us, the readers, really think about what it means to be alive. Yes, there is drugs, smoking, sex, pranks, drinking, religion, etc. which may not be suitable for some teens (I've heard the book has been challenged due to this) but even with all the 'bad stuff' there is plenty good in this book: love, friendship, trust, faith.

Looking for Alaska reads very easily ' though the subject matter changes throughout. The dialogue is fresh and funny ' nothing seems forced ' and the characters are believable and relatable.

This is one book where I don't want to give out any spoilers because it was just so well done. I ended it loving all the characters and am interested to check out more works by Green. Looking for Alaska made me think of Catcher in the Rye meets Into the Wild meets The Virgin Suicides.

It was just a spectacular read!

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5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing book !
I had heard on this book many times, while looking through reviews for The Perks of Being a Wallflower, mostly. Read more

Published 2 days ago by elisabeth

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic
Great Book, John Green clearly remembers what it is like to be a young person growing up. I could relate to the experiences in the book and I couldnt put it down.

Published 17 months ago by Wieben

5.0 out of 5 stars Great YA book
I so deeply loved this book. Green did an amazing job of creating radiant and magnetic characters. Readers will enjoy the duality of Pudge's dry whit with Alaska's desperate... Read more

Published on May 18 2010 by The Crescive Library

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